Non-Yaoi Warning: We've got a few boys in this one, yeah, but most
(read: all) of them are too busy tying to kill each other, or watching
other people try to kill each other, to be bothered with things such as
making out...

Not that that stops some authors... 

Indeed -_-;...

Additionally, i have significantly modified/extended this version of the
chapter, as compared to the original version that appears at
fanfiction.net, and some of the changes will probably affect future
revisions in some sort of freakish ripple effect that will totally
change the story >_<;.

Ooh, exciting! :) 

Maybe not so much as i made it sound, here ^_^;...

*Huh, 'guess the kid's more than just talk,* Anko mused, claiming her
seat beside her raptly watching 'student.'

Any particular reason for the apostrophe before guess? 

Just denoting that it's a shortened form of 'I guess.' I usually use it that way when shortening words, and i thought it might be helpful when reading sentences to get the pacing of the words. 

"Anko, what does that mark mean?" the faux green-haired girl pleaded,
again clutching her own shoulder as phantom pain pierced her at the
sight of the seal. Anko caught on immediately, and Sakura didn't resist
when the jounin grabbed her shirt, stretching the elastic collar check
for the telltale mark.

"collar to check" 
Man, wouldn't that have sucked for Sakura, if the cursed seal was somehow
contagious like that? 

Yeah, Sakura has enough problems to worry about at the moment, without something like that suddenly landing in her lap...

"Orochimaru gave it to Sasuke when they fought in the Forest of Death.
He fell into a terrible fever afterward, and when he woke up..." The
young genin shuddered. "He... he was like a beast." Then Sakura's eyes
widened in shock. "-Like I was, when I fought Ino!"

I'm not certain that the - needs to be there, 

Hmm... it's a sentence fragment continuing an idea from the previous sentence after an interruption. Any other ideas on what i could do here?

Seeming to sense the danger that he was in, standing between two
righteously enraged women, the ANBU assumed a pose of careful
consideration. "Kakashi-sama probably sensed that it would be safer for
Sasuke to remain completely out of sight for the time being, and there
are few people better suited to hiding him from one of the Three than
Sharingan Kakashi," he pointed out.

...bad move. 

It doesn't blow up on him though, thankfully; they're not really in full-blown 'Kakashi-hate-mode' at the moment, though it would be fun if they were ^_^. 

"Sure, though I doubt that'll be a problem," Sakura predicted ruefully,
following Anko's lead and trying to relax. "Since when do you have
money for snacks, though?" she asked with a wry grin. 
"Oh, I don't, but luckily, I've got a cute, generous student like you to
treat me!" Anko replied sweetly, holding up a very familiar-looking
coin purse.

Are we sure she's not actually getting everything she knows of
student/teacher relationships from Jiraiya?  :) 

Great stomachs think alike... or something...

"Um.... am I interrupting something?" ventured an eerily familiar voice.

Glancing over her own shoulder, Sakura was shocked to find her double
standing at the entrance to the galleries, wearing in her usual red
dress and black shorts and looking rather bemused. "Wha- what the hell
are you doing here?!" the green-haired girl shrieked, trying to twist
out of Anko's grasp.

Oh boy.  This should be... amusing.  :) 

It could have gone that way, but instead i went for the existential angst jar again. I need to stop doing that -_-;.
 

"Ino came to get me so we could watch Sasuke-kun's match together," the
clone replied. "Apparently _somebody_ had a 'talk' with her..." Both
Sakuras turned to peer suspiciously at Anko.

Maybe should just be "Both Sakura"?  That's what I usually do, since some
names don't pluralize that easily. 

I thought of that too; sometimes it's hard to choose between the japanese 'uninflected plural,' or the form we're more accustomed to. 

"What?" Letting go of Sakura's kimono to make a final, unsuccessful grab
for her wallet, Anko frowned in annoyance. "I just told her the truth.
Isn't that what you wanted?"

Suggest changing the her in front of wallet to something that less
ambiguously refers to Sakura. 

Hmm... 'for the contested wallet'?

"I saw her leaving the stadium when I went to the bathroom, so I stopped
her," Anko replied testily. "Why are you giving me that look? You and
her are good now, right?" She peered expectantly at the clone. 
The pink-hared Sakura grimaced, but nodded reluctantly. "Yeah, she said
she's not mad anymore, and that you told her weren't going out, but
she's still... I dunno."

"pink-haired" 
I think the comma after grimaced is extraneous. 
"told her we weren't going" 

Yeah, there are a _lot_ of typos in the new section >_<;...

The doppelganger fixed Anko with a laser-beam stare. "Are you sure you
didn't say anything weird to her?"

It's Anko.  Of _course_ she said something weird. 

That should go without saying, but Sakura still isn't all that used to her yet...

"I swear, I just told her what we've really been doing. I didn't say
anything that wasn't true." Lacing her fingers behind her head, Anko
leaned back on her heels and gave Sakura a flat look. "She was all
ready to blame me for everything, anyway, so you can stop stressing
about it. She's still your friend; she just needed to calm down a bit."

Suggest "gave the real Sakura a flat look" (assuming that's the right one)

Yeah, that's the one she was talking to. Will fix...

When the clone nodded in agreement and also offered her mumbled thanks,
Sakura suddenly realized that she had no reason to hide anymore. "If
mom thinks I'm watching the tournament with Ino, then I can go talk to
her. Switch places with me," she ordered, moving toward her double.

...well, _that_ could certainly cause a ripple effect.  I would have been
sorely tempted to have Sakura not think of that just on the "I'm not
going to rewrite the whole next plot arc from scratch" principle. 

Trying to make Sakura smart and observant ends up causing me a lot of problems; it makes it so she can be more useful with less raw 'hero power,' but it also means a lot of the standard plotting ploys start to break down ^_^;...

"Please," The clone pleaded, grabbing Sakura's arm, "if it's true, then
it'll be just like when we possessed Anko. I just want to stay like
this for a little longer. You know how scary as it is, not- not
knowing..."

"how scary it is" 

Ugh; i should not do editing right before i go to bed...

*'...not knowing if you're 'real' or not,'* Sakura finished silently,
pondering the words that her double couldn't say. Unfortunately, she
knew that feeling all too well. "...Dammit. Why am I so screwed up?"
she wondered aloud, shaking her head. "Fine. We can stay like this for
a little longer."

...huh.  Perhaps my memory is failing, but I'm having trouble figuring out
just what this exchange is referencing.  Just the whole assimilation of
Anko memories thing, or is this a hint of something that hasn't come up
yet? 

She's referring to the problems that arose from her possession of Anko. I may have had her phrase it too strongly, or perhaps i haven't had her linger on it enough beforehand, but I think that the Sakura copy in Anko's head probably would have had some real existential issues when she discovered that she was being 'overwritten' by Anko's personality. All of those memories are Sakura's property now, which makes her rather abnormally inclined to put herself in her clone's shoes. 

"I don't see why not," Anko replied, shrugging. "The design definitely
suits you. Maybe you should call that trick of yours 'Kitsune-Tsuki,'"
she suggested with a nasty grin.

Fox-Moon? 

That's what i thought it sounded like, too, but kitsune-tsuki is the traditional term used to describe fox possession or fox madness...

"It should be fine," the monkey-masked man agreed. "You've already
volunteered to help with exam security, and no active ANBU has worn a
fox mask in thirteen years, so it's not like we'll mistake you for
someone else."

...heh. 

Which is not to say that it isn't still in bad taste for Sakura to do it, but... 

Pausing for a moment, he tilted his head to the side in an almost
comically monkey-like pose. "'Kitsune-Tsuki:' Fox Possession?" he
queried curiously. 
"Umm..." Sweating a little, Sakura darted a questioning glance at Anko,
but the special jounin seemed to have realized that she'd said
something that could potentially be embarrassing to _her_, and was
giving Sakura eyes that screamed, 'Watch your tongue or I'll kill you!"

Either the ' or the " there needs to change to match. 

Crap; should have both been '. 

"Come to think of it, she mentioned something about possessing
Anko-sama, just now, didn't she?" 
*%$#&@!*

Hee.

I'd remembered that in the original version, i never really indicated when he found out about that...

Hmm... should it be "Poor, poor Sakura-chan" again or does this one
actually merit a "Poor, poor Anko-chan"?  :) 

Naaaah; i haven't found an opportunity to make Anko really suffer yet, though i'm definitely looking. When it happens, it'll probably involve Iruka ^_~...

Anyways, another good chapter/part of a chapter/whatever.  I think the
additions worked nicely, so nothing to worry about on that front IMO. 

That's good; thus far, i don't seem them changing things in _big_ way, but the mask means i have to rewrite character reactions toward Sakura in the next several chapters, and Sakura's later encounter with her clone will probably have to be tweaked as well...

I'm more worried about the existing parts of "Breath," and my standing reservations about how effective it was as a chapter -_-;. Bleah... 

At any rate, thanks for taking a look! I seem to be moving along at a reasonable clip with these revisions, so i'll probably at least try to finish "Breath" before going back to the current storyline. This might be importannt, if i end up changing it drastically. Wish me luck...

~Eimii

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