OMG! A doujinshi of Sasuke and Sakura when they were kids!!! The art is so so so cute and both young Sakura and young Sasuke are so so so adorable!!! The main story of this doujinshi is basically Oushou Chikubai's take on young Sakura's first encounter with young Sasuke, resulting in her declaration that he is her "suki na hito" ("the person I like") in Sakura's childhood flashback. And since this takes place around the time when young Sakura is still constantly being picked on by bullies, she is still very insecure and, overall, a very timid little thing. (But that's what makes her so so so cute!!! Gah! Someone *coughs*Sasuke*coughs* should just hug her and tell her everything is all right.)

Beginning with an academy teacher asking Sakura to give out their homework of the day to the male students of her class, she reluctantly goes to seek out the boys. Why the reluctant face? Because of her supposedly large forehead, she is constantly picked on by people of her class, male students included. So when she arrives at the playground and timidly tries to hand out the worksheets to the boys there, she ends up getting bullied. (Those brats are horrible!!! They pull her hair, calls her horrible names, and demands her to do their homework for her!!! >:\) Left with no choice, since Sakura doesn't want to anger the bullies nor does she want to disappoint her teacher, she wanders off to do everyone's homework on a wooden table in the nearby park. The first worksheet she picks up belongs to a classmate named "Uchiha Sasuke". She realizes she had not try giving him his worksheet yet. But upon remembering back to a time when she saw someone approach this boy and receiving nothing but a glare in return, Sakura files Sasuke as one of the "scary people" and decides it is best to do his homework for him in order to avoid any further bullying. (Aww... XD)

Just as she is beginning to start on the homework, young Sasuke walks by the park and softly utters the word "sakura" ("sakura" = "cherry blossom") when a cherry blossom petal falls right in front of his face. Hearing her name so suddenly, Sakura freaks out and answers. But when she turns around and sees Sasuke holding a cherry blossom petal in his hand, she realizes he was referring to the flower in his hand and not her. Poor Sakura is then so embarrassed that she looks like she wants to dig a hole and bury herself in it. Not to mention she is completely terrified of the boy standing behind her as well. On the other hand, Sasuke takes a look at the flower in his hand and the girl in front of her. Putting two and two together, he realizes "Sakura" is the girl's name. (The pink hair is a dead giveaway.) That was why she responded when he said that word "sakura". He tries to confirm this by asking her. But he is only able to get out a "hey you" before the girl freaks out again and starts shivering in fear. At this point, poor Sakura looks like she is about to cry because she thinks she offended Sasuke. XD This leaves Sasuke half exasperated and half annoyed, as he has no clue why the girl in front of him is acting this way. But he pauses when he notices his worksheet in front of the girl. Seeing his curious look, Sakura quickly explains that the worksheets are their homework for the day but no one, Sasuke included, wanted to do it. So imagine her surprise when he takes his own worksheet, sits across from her and starts doing his own work. But being someone who had been bullied constantly over the past N years, she is at first skeptical. And so, she reverts back to the scared little girl who is constantly apologizing when Sasuke even only raises his head to ask her a question. XD Once again, this annoys Sasuke. But seeing the frightened look on Sakura's face, he can't stay mad at her and thus, he softens up, hoping she will no longer see him as a threat to her safety. Eventually, Sakura realizes Sasuke is very different from the bullies she had encountered. He does not demand her to do his homework nor does he try to squeeze free answers out from her. And while they did not exchange many words during that afternoon, she still had a relaxing and somewhat fun time.

The title of this doujinshi translates to "With or Without Me...", an implication that Sasuke feels that everything will go on normally with or without his existence. Sounds depressing? But even Oushou Chikubai admitted, in the author's note, that the title gives off a wrong impression of most of what's really happening in the doujinshi. Because like "Dekkopachi", this doujinshi consists of mostly short comedy stories about Sasuke and Sakura.

In the first story, Sakura casually asks Sasuke what he is looking for in a perfect wife. And Sasuke's reply? "A woman who will bear a lot of children for her husband." Sakura is completely baffled by his responses and goes to Kakashi to rant with a can of beer orange juice. ^_^ Next story is similar to the first, where Sakura casually asks Sasuke what he wants (since it is getting close to his birthday). And Sasuke's reply? "Power!" And once again, Sakura goes rant-mode in front of Kakashi, though this time without the juice. ^_^

Then there is the story where Sasuke and Sakura are walking down the streets when they see two young brothers playing with each other. Sakura then notices Sasuke staring intently at the two boys and realizes the sight in front of them must've reminded him of his past with Itachi. And as Sakura silently freaks out and wonders what she should do to comfort him, we catch a glimpse of Sasuke's thoughts. "In order to raise one kid from birth to his academy graduation year, I'll need X amount of money. Given that I have Y amount of insurance money leftover from the clan and I will be earning Z amount of money each year, I can probably support up to 7 kids." *DIES* Yes, Sasuke-kun is not angsting. He is actually calculating how many kids he can have without going bankrupt!!!

My favourite story is next. I'm not sure how many of you guys have heard of this, but there is a popular belief among young girls that if you clench both your fists tightly, then the number of bumps that you see on your wrists is supposed to be the number of kids you'll have in the future. (I used to do this a lot with my friends when I was young. ^^) And so, we have Sakura walking down the streets one day and notices Ino and Hinata playing "count the bumps". She joins them as Ino and Hinata each take one of her hands and count... and count... and count... and end up with 12 bumps! Ouch!!! And the result? Sakura rushes over to the Uchiha estate and demands to marry Sasuke right away. I mean, if she is going to have 12 kids, she may as well start early and get things over with quickly!!! XD

The next few stories are based on the game "Konoha Ninpouchou". But since I haven't even played the game and don't quite understand what's going on, I'm going to skip over them. Though it is immensely amusing to watch the small boy, a character from the game who seems to have a crush on Sakura, disses Sasuke every given chance just to make him look bad in front of Sakura. *snickers*

Next story is a bit more SasuSaku-ish. It starts off with Sakura asking Sasuke out for a date but getting rejected. (Sasuke-kun chose to clean a kunai instead of going out on a date with Sakura? *uppercuts him*) Feeling defeated, she plops down beside him and almost dozes off until Sasuke's hand swings pass her head while trying to pull a piece of stray string off the kunai and the clasp of his... arm warmer(?) gets tangled with her hair. After a few fruitless attempts to untangle her hair from the clasp, Sakura realizes Sasuke must've been getting annoyed by all the trouble and suggests cutting off the part of her hair that is tangled. Hearing this, Sasuke freaks out and grabs her hand to stop her. Realizing he did something so horribly out of character for his normal image *gasps*, he takes a few seconds to calm down. And with a little blush on his face, he then tells Sakura that they can do this - untangle her hair - slowly and that she shouldn't think of cutting her hair so easily. Immediately after this, we get a little flashback to the Forest of Death hair-cutting incident, implying that Sasuke-kun was not too happy when Sakura so easily cut off all her long hair back then. ^_^ And Sakura realizes this as well, as she, also with a blush on her face, then asks Sasuke if he wants her to grow back her hair again! He answers with a typical "do what you want" reply. But judging by the small pauses before and after his reply, it's obvious that he wants Sakura to have long hair once again! A blushy Sasuke is so cute!!! XD

This is Oushou Chikubai's first copy-bon, with a story taking place between Kakashi's talk with Sasuke and his encounter with the Sound Four, telling of how Sasuke came to his decision of leaving Konoha for Sound. (If you pay closer attention, you'll notice that Kakashi gave Sasuke the talk in the afternoon and the Sound Four did not attack until later that night. So this story takes place during that blank afternoon.)

"Sasuke, you should stop seeking revenge. You and I have both found those important to us, no?" These were the words floating in Sasuke's mind as he wanders aimlessly around Konoha after Kakashi's talk with him. And before he knows it, he finds himself squatting on Sakura's bedroom window ledge, watching over her, who had cried herself to sleep after witnessing the incident of him and Naruto trying to kill each other on the hospital top floor earlier that afternoon. When he comes back to his senses and realizes where he is, he turns to leave, only to be stopped by Sakura calling out for him. Cursing himself for his bad luck, he turns around to dismiss Sakura, and notices his teammate was actually calling out to him in a nightmare. Unable to see the torn look on her face, Sasuke tries to comfort Sakura by stroking her hair. But as his hand is nearing her face, she unconsciously reaches out and grabs something, which, of course, turns out to be his hand. And he ends up having no choice but to stay there by her side because he doesn't want to wake her up. As Sasuke watches Sakura struggle in her sleep, he realizes she is dreaming of the many encounters he had with her over the past few months: her trying to stop his cursed seal in the Forest of Death, her worrying about him and trying to stop him from continuing in the preliminary rounds, her attempting to stop Naruto and him from killing each other.

While Sasuke is touched by Sakura's concern for him, he also realizes the hatred born from Itachi's betrayal is something he cannot let go of, no matter how much Sakura wishes for it to be gone. As an avenger, he lives to hunt down that one man, even if it'll cost him his life. And this is why he must stay away from Sakura at all cost, for she has the ability to heal the wound his hatred had inflicted deep inside his heart. Upon coming to such a realization, he leaves (but not before giving Sakura a light kiss on her cheek XD). Shortly after his departure, Sakura wakes up. She senses the remainder of Sasuke's presence in her room, but quickly dismisses it as a dream. Back to Sasuke, soon after leaving Sakura's room, he encounters the Sound Four. And here, we get an amazing scene that jumps between Sasuke's battle and Sakura slowly coming to a realization what Sasuke would eventually do (leave Konoha for Sound). At this very moment, she knows she must tell Sasuke of her true feelings, even if he sees her feelings as only a hindrance. But her feelings are genuine and are not fake. So even if she knows she may sound silly and stupid to Sasuke (and probably other people as well), she insists of letting him know the truth, leading us to the starting scene in chapter 181, where Sakura stands by the bench and waits for Sasuke to show up.

This is, hands down, my absolute favourite doujinshi by Oushou Chikubai. The doujinshi consists of a handful of short comedy stories, all having something to do with Sakura's forehead. Yes, it does make fun of Sakura's forehead. But that's where all the fun lies! XD Oh, and I believe the title of this doujinshi most likely translates to "Forehead Patch". (See last story.)

Ever wondered why Itachi loves to poke Sasuke's forehead? Apparently, he is looking for the "perfect forehead". Too bad Sasuke's forehead doesn't fit Itachi's requirement. (That may be why Itachi refuses to train with Sasuke. *snickers*) But one day, an unnamed girl with pink hair crosses his path and trips right on her face. For whatever unknown reason, the mass-murderer-to-be decides to help this little girl up. And in doing so, he realizes something... This little girl has the "perfect forehead" that he had been searching for all along! And ever since this incident, he becomes a Sakura-stalker. (We actually see a small picture of Itachi spying on Sakura in the next story. XD)

Then there's a story that explains why Naruto chooses to end his fight against Gaara with a headbutt. Apparently, this is one of the few "techniques" Sakura has taught him. It all started on one normal day, when Sasuke and Naruto are picking fights with each other as usual. After seeing Naruto attempt a headbutt on Sasuke, Sakura stops them, claiming that he is doing it the wrong way. Grabbing the closest person to her (who turned out to be poor Kakashi-sensei), she proceeds to give Naruto and Sasuke instructions of how to properly headbutt someone. "You have to do it quick and abrupt, before the enemy notices what you're trying to do. The success lies in your speed and accuracy. Aim directly at your enemy's head where the brain is." And WHAM! Sakura performs a perfect headbutt on a very scared-looking Kakashi and knocks him out right away. (The caption for this image: "Wide Forehead vs. Forehead Protector! Wide Forehead wins!!!") Back to the present, we see the result of Naruto using the super special Sakura headbutt on Gaara. See? It worked!!!

The main story of this doujinshi begins with Sakura waking up one morning with the kanji "inner" etched to her forehead. (We usually see this kanji on Inner Sakura's forehead.) Unable to get rid of it, Sakura has no choice but to put a bandage (or patch, which explains the doujinshi's title) to cover up the kanji. When she goes to meet up with the rest of Team 7 later, Sasuke takes one look at her forehead and can't stop laughing because she reminds him of a certain anime character with three eyes who uses a bandage to cover his third eye. (The name of that character and anime escaped me right now... Will have to check up on this.) Not wanting Sasuke to see her as someone weird, Sakura tells him that she accidentally walked into a wall yesterday and hurt her forehead, that's why she has a bandage there. To Sakura's horror, Sasuke then offers some of his super secret Uchiha clan medicine to Sakura, claiming that she should put some on her wound before it leaves a scar. And as he reaches for her bandage, she ducks... obviously, because there is no wound there to begin with! Even though she claims she is okay with just a bandage, Sasuke feels offended, thinking she doesn't trust his super secret Uchiha clan medicine. And so, the two start wrestling each other, one to take off the bandage and the other to keep the bandage on. Eventually, Sasuke corners Sakura. Just as he is about to rip the bandage off her forehead, Naruto shows up and notices Sasuke hovering over Sakura with Sakura trying to hold off Sasuke's two hands. And Naruto's reaction? "Oh my gawd!!! Why is Sakura-chan attacking Sasuke?!!" (Yes, Naruto is a little dense. XD) After a small explanation of what's going on, Naruto finally gets it and makes a joke about how easy Sakura's forehead can get hurt because it's simply too wide. Completely offended, Inner Sakura is released and gives Naruto a nice right hooker. Just as she is getting up, she notices Sasuke holding her bandage. (He took it off while she was punching Naruto.) Almost in tears, Sakura quickly covers herself, but stops when Sasuke tells her nothing is wrong with her forehead. Surprised, Sakura then realizes what's going on. It turns out she had been a bit too serious lately and Inner Sakura did not get a chance to come out. And I suppose the kanji on her forehead is Inner Sakura's protest that Sakura should release some of her inner feelings sometimes. Luckily for Sakura, when Naruto angered her, she released all her anger onto him. And the kanji faded before Sasuke could see it. And so, everything goes back to normal for Team 7. No more weird kanji on foreheads, no more whipping out super secret clan medicine, no more misinterpreting situations, and no more cracking wide forehead jokes!

Here is another doujinshi with a story focused on the events of the infamous chapter 181. So yes, it's angst, angst, and more angst. But unlike "Yasa", we see things through Sakura's eyes only and we get to catch a glimpse into her thoughts as well.

The story begins with Sakura by the bench, knowing the boy she loves would eventually pass by this place and leave their hometown. As she waits, she thinks back to a short conversation she had with Ino a while ago. Apparently, Ino caught the depressed Sakura moping around and gave her a slight scolding when she expressed her worries for Sasuke to her best friend. Claiming that Sakura should not be acting like this, Ino assured that Sasuke would be fine and things would go back to normal soon. But these words did not comfort Sakura at all. Ino was not there to see the out-of-control look on Sasuke's face when the cursed seal took over in the Forest of Death. Ino was not there to observe how helpless Sasuke became when the cursed seal corroded his body in the fight against Gaara. And most of all, Ino was not there to witness the murderous intent Sasuke had for Naruto just a few days ago on the hospital top floor. As Sakura replays these scenes over and over in her mind, she becomes more and more sure that Sasuke would eventually leave them. And that is why she would do anything to stop him. Just as she is finishing up this thought, Sasuke shows up. And we get a reenactment of the events from chapter 181, where Sakura tries everything to stop Sasuke from leaving; she reasons with him, she begs him, and she even threatens him. She realizes if her feelings are not enough to keep him in Konoha, she would have to do it the hard way... to scream out for help, even if he ends up hating her.

But as we all know, Sasuke stops Sakura before this can happen. Suddenly reappearing behind her, Sasuke whispers a soft "thank you" before knocking her out. And for a short moment before she falls unconscious, Sakura wonders... why? Why did Sasuke thank her when he told her she is annoying just moments ago? And if she was quick enough to turn around before he knocked her out, what would be the expression on Sasuke's face as he thanks her? (That's what I want to find out too!) But all is too late. She no long has the chance to find out, for he is long gone by the time she wakes up. And the story ends with a short monologue, where Sakura prays for Sasuke... for his happiness... and most importantly, for a light that can lead him off the path of darkness he is currently walking on.

Raise your hand if you think Sasuke and Sakura remind you of the Fire Hero and Sana (Gensou Suikoden 3) on the cover. *raises both hands* Seriously! My first reaction upon seeing this doujinshi was, "Did Irene send me a Suikoden 3 one instead of a Naruto one by mistake?" And then when I showed it to my brother, his first reaction was, "Wow! Is that the Fire Hero and Sana?" XD Story-wise, in order to understand what's going on, we have to assume two things.

1) Sasuke has returned from Orochimaru and has advanced to the rank of a jounin.
2) Itachi is still alive, somewhere out there.

This is the first real volume of the "Jyuunanaya" series (or "The Seventeenth Night" series). The one in the previous entry is actually just a preview volume. So everything from the preview volume is also included in this volume! *oogles cover illustration of anbu Sasuke* XD

Starting off after what happened in the preview volume, Sasuke, Sakura and the mysterious baby with the Sharing begin their new life together in the Uchiha household. But things don't go as smoothly as Sasuke had planned. First, Sakura spills milk on herself, leaving Sasuke to clean up the mess with the baby strapped to his back while she grabs a quick shower. Then, of all people, Kakashi shows up to blatantly laugh at Sasuke for being the... househusband (cleaning up and feeding the baby). And of course, now that Kakashi-sensei is here, he has to teach his pupil "how to be a man", no? According to Kakashi-sensei's Come Come Paradise, if a man and a woman are living under the same roof, the man is REQUIRED to "accidentally" walk into the bathroom while the woman is showering. So yeah, he is encouraging Sasuke to go peep at Sakura. On top of that, the baby even tries peeing on Sasuke later that day! XD By the second day, Sasuke is already wishing for a more "normal" mission. (Ha! I knew it! Baby > Sasuke!!!)

After two days of non-stop labour with hardly any sleep (since the baby cries at night), Sasuke pretty much drops dead on Sakura's bed (instead of the couch that he had been sleeping on) from exhaustion. And as he is slowly drifting off to sleep, he smells Sakura's scent on the sheets, and he realizes his "house" is slowly becoming a "home" without him realizing it. But at the same time, the "home" reminds him of his past, and he finds himself dreaming of his childhood. In his dream, he was accompanying his mother to the hospital. When young Sasuke asked his mother her reason for being there, she didn't give him a direct answer but smiled and told him he'll be much happier in a few months. Unfortunately, his mom did not have a few months. The next day, Itachi wiped out the entire Uchiha clan, including their mom, and even forced Sasuke to relive those moments over and over again. Back to the present, Sasuke wakes up from his nightmare, screaming out his hatred for his elder brother. This, unfortunately, wakes up the sleeping baby and he starts crying again. And let's just say Sasuke looks really scary when he connects the baby to the murderer of his clan. *_* Fortunately, at this very moment, Sakura returns home from buying dinner but doesn't notice Sasuke's mood change (since his back is to the baby and her). Offhandedly, she suggests naming the baby, since it's quite troublesome to be always calling him "the baby". And before he realizes what he is doing, Sasuke blurts out the name "Kanagi". It is a name mentioned a few times by his mother before her death. When he thinks back to it now, he finally understands his mother's cryptic message the day before her death. She was pregnant with a baby, his younger brother. That was why she went to the hospital and why she told Sasuke that he would be much happier in a few months. But the massacre occurred and Itachi wiped out everyone, even their unborn younger brother, who was to be named "Kanagi" by their parents... ;__; Then once again, we're left with an exciting "to be continued"! Argh!!! What a way to keep us readers hanging. *_*