Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Every One Has Their Demons ❯ Relaxation and Tests ( Chapter 3 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: shishio 
Anime/Manga: Naruto Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Hentai / Action | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 02.16.2006 | Pages: 5 | Words: 10.3K | Visits: 379 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Naruto Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Hentai / Action | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 02.16.2006 | Pages: 5 | Words: 10.3K | Visits: 379 | Status: Completed
I’m not repeating this again, ok? The disclaimer on the first page, go read it. That goes for the rest of the story Tsukiko Nanashi is /my/ character. She is, so far, the only one who is mine.
This story takes place up to just after Naruto comes home, before he goes after the people who kidnapped Gaara.
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I had put poison in Orochimaru’s food for dinner that night. When the snake ate his dinner, I challenged him to a sparring match. He had loved it when we fought, constantly trying to see exactly how strong his next vessel would be. Tonight, however, he had fallen in our battle. The poison kicked in half way through, and no one, not even Kabuto, knew what was happening. No one could help him in time even if they did realize what I had done. All it took was a sword through the heart and a blade in his neck. Other than that, there are no more injuries on his body.
When Kabuto saw this, he freaked out. I turned to him, and as he tried to get away, I threw another sword at him, which he did dodge, but who said that was my real attack? Instead, I had snuck up on him, having copied Naruto’s Kage Buunshin no Jutsu in our battle at the Valley of the End, and killed that bastard quite easily. All it took was sending Chidori through his chest. From there, it was easy.
The people scattered, but they were no match for me. Orochimaru prided himself in training me himself, he had yet allowed me to summon snakes, but it’s not like I would want to learn such a technique.
Well, after three days traveling, luckily I had put preservatives on Orochimaru’s body to keep him from rotting; I’m now on the outskirts of Konoha. Silently, I walk up to the gate, only to see most of the village there, waiting for me. Suddenly, every one rushed at me, but no one was faster than a pink blur, which threw her arms around me immediately. “Sasuke! Sasuke! I’m so happy you’re back!”
“Sakura?” I asked, every thing seemed so surreal. Must be because I didn’t expect such a nice welcome-back party. Every one else was congratulating me on a job well done. ‘I guess Tsunade told them all I was a double agent.’ I thought as a blond haired tan skinned shinobi, along with a white haired girl walked up to me.
“Yeah, Sasuke, we’re here to welcome you back.” Naruto replied, I was a little surprised to see the indifferent white haired girl standing beside him, but I didn’t say anything about it.
“Sasuke!” Sakura finally released him. “We’re going to my house, me, Naruto, Kakashi, and Tsukiko here.” She pointed at the girl, who nodded at me in greeting.
“Sasuke! Where’s Orochimaru’s body?” Tsunade asked from behind Naruto. At her question, the entire crowd shut up, not really wanting to talk about Orochimaru.
“His body is in this bag. No need to worry, he’s dead, I checked. There’s no way that he could survive two stab wounds from a sword.” Sasuke said, his shields going up at once. His voice sounded as cold as ever, and his face looked just a cold. The forehead protector for the sound wasn’t on his head, meaning that he did come back of his own free will. Other than his height and his muscle tone, nothing had changed. He had grown a little bit more in muscle mass, that’s it.
As Tsunade walked up to him, pulling her apprentice off of him, Sasuke put the bag on the ground. One could easily tell that there was a man inside that bag, since a hand had fallen out of it, and the bag sagged around the body. “I had to preserve his body, so that he wouldn’t smell on the way here.” Sasuke explained the perfect condition that his former ‘sensei’ was in.
Tsunade nodded before whispering in his ear. “You should get cleaned up and go to Sakura’s party. It’s been a nice welcome back celebration.” Of course she knew that not every one would completely trust Sasuke, and he probably wouldn’t be allowed to go on any really dangerous missions for a while, since he was still a technical genin, but that would easily change. She had gotten the elders to agree to letting Sasuke compete in the up-coming chuunin entrance exam, and she had gotten Sasuke’s full team, though Sakura and Naruto wouldn’t be in the last exam, along with Tsukiko, to be allowed to join him in it. The exam was now taken in teams of four, since her new rule required a medic nin on every team, and that put a fourth member on each team.
Sasuke nodded and rushed off home, Naruto had replaced his body with a shadow clone and a Henge no Jutsu to keep every one there. The Sasuke clone acted like the real Sasuke, even though Naruto, Sakura, the real Sasuke, and Tsukiko had taken off, the clone remained.
Sasuke immediately went to his house, Tsukiko and Sakura went to Sakura’s house, and Naruto went to his home to get ready.
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Stripping quickly and quietly as the running water sent all the dust in the bottom of the tub down the drain in a black mixture, he brushed out all the knots in his multi-length hair. His shower was warm, and welcomed. After rinsing out a washcloth, he cleaned his dirty and slightly battered body of the five or so inches of sweat and grime that covered it. Bathing had been a luxury that he didn’t get on his travels. It was quite the good thing that he hadn’t any need to go into a town.
His hair was just as dirty as his body. He had to wash his hair several times with the shampoo in order to get all the dirt off of his scalp and all the oil out of his hair. ‘I’m never going to go this long with out a bath again.’ He thought as he turned off the faucet and rung all the water out of his hair. His towels, which were in a cabinet that got no air circulation, were just as white and fluffy as they were when he had left since they did not get dust on them.
After towel drying off and drying his hair out the rest of the way, he quickly went to find another out fit, his normal shirt, disconnected sleeves, shorts, and shoes, these were all in a closet that saw no sunlight, and had no dust. A little annoyed that the clothing was too small, he went off to look for something decent that he could wear.
An outfit that Naruto had gotten him the year that he had left for his birthday caught his eye. Since the usuratonkachi didn’t know which size of clothing he wore, Naruto had bought it a little big. Quickly, he pulled the outfit on, finding that the clothes were still a little too big, but would do.
What the usuratonkachi had bought him turned out to be a form fitting black button-up silk shirt, and a pair of black jeans. ‘Why did Naruto buy me this?’ The shirt almost reached his knees, since it was still a little big in the length, and the pants were rather baggy. Next, he turned to the accessories that Naruto had gotten him. A pair of black socks, black tennis shoes, and what the fuck?! A bottle of liquid eyeliner!? ‘This has to be a joke! No, I’m not /ever/ going to wear make up.’ A chain necklace made up of silver sat on top of every thing. Quickly, he put on what was left, and took off.
Sasuke ran as fast as he could with out getting all sweaty again. He reached Sakura’s house and knocked on the door. The same girl with white and, now that he could see better, pale blue hair opened the door. “Hello there. The party is just about to start. Of the other ninja here, there is Hinata-sama, Kiba-sama, Shino-sama, Neji-sama, Ten Ten-sama, Lee-sama, Ino-sama, Chouji-sama, Shikamaru-sama, Kurenai-sensei, Asuma-sensei, Gai-sensei, Naruto-sama, Sakura-sama, Kakashi-sensei, and myself. Do any of these people make you feel threatened?”
((I’m taking this out of Sasuke’s POV, it’s getting quite annoying…))
You could tell that she had rehearsed these lines, though that might be her normal tone, she spoke with out emotion. Every word sounded like the last. Sasuke shook his head and stepped inside when she moved off to the side. “No, I don’t think any one here, except maybe Naruto, could beat me in a fight.” Tsukiko nodded and moved back over to Sakura.
The reason why Tsukiko continually stood by Sakura was the girl was kind to her, she did not want to talk to some one who was not so. Sakura immediately started introducing Tsukiko to Lee, who started a speech about the flame of youth. Lee had grown his hair out, and managed to make it lie flat, Sakura liked his hair better this way.
Naruto walked up to Sasuke immediately, and Sasuke took a mental note that Naruto had changed his wardrobe. Instead of the heavy coat, the usuratonkachi had put on a dark orange T-shirt that hung off of him loosely, probably for better fighting and less clothing restrictions. Black shorts covered him from his waist down, and he’s still got that stupid swirl symbol, only that is on his pant legs, on the outside, instead of on his shoulders.
Sasuke also took a mental note that Neji was looking a little bit jealous, since Naruto had left the Byaakugan user to talk to him. “Sasuke! Every one’s so happy that you’re back!” The over active and rather hyper chuunin yelled.
People stopped talking briefly to nod their heads in agreement before they continued to talk. “Um, is there anything that I’ve missed? How many tests do I have to take to catch up with you two?”
Naruto thought for a moment. “Well, every one’s still at chuunin level, except Shikamaru, he’s a jounin. Oh, Tsukiko! Come over here for a moment!” He had managed to talk to the girl a few minutes before Sasuke showed up. The girl walked over to the two friends and looked at Naruto.
“Yes, Naruto-sama?” She still had that extremely creepy monotone voice. “You needed something?”
Naruto nodded. “What level are you at? Chuunin, jounin, genin? If you’re above me and Sakura, then we’ll all have to take tests to continue to be on the same team.”
Tsukiko said this as briefly as she could. “I’m a chuunin. Is that all?” She didn’t like talking to the hyper active blonde, his voice got annoying quickly.
Naruto shook his head. “You and Sasuke have to talk for a while, it’s no good to have team mates that won’t cooperate with each other because they do not know each other.”
Tsukiko gave Naruto a glare. “You are keeping a secret from every one, so do not say that I’m to tell him, or any one else, about myself. I’m sorry if I sound rude, Naruto-sama, but no one knows the ‘real’ you either, do they? Maybe one or two of the kids, you’ve probably told Sakura, but that’s it.” Her voice had suddenly gone cold, so much so that every one looked at her.
Naruto looked annoyed. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but a S-Class missing nin doesn’t talk down to me!” He received a hard slap and his cheek turned red. “Hey! What did you do that for?”
“You will /never/ speak about that again. That was not my fault. Sasuke here was a missing nin just like me. We’ve both returned to the village, so why is it that you only accept him back? Is it because I didn’t grow up around you?” She paused to take a breath, Tsukiko’s voice had gone deadly, and a lesser man than Naruto would have cowered in a corner. “Or are you just letting your past get in the way?”
Quickly, Tsukiko turned on her heel and walked to the door. “Sakura-sama, I will return your clothing tomorrow. I wish all of you a good night.” She had quickly returned to her indifferent expression and voice. Tsukiko threw open the door and ran out, not bothering to close it behind her.
Sakura walked up to Naruto and started to yell at him. “What in the hell was that about, eh, Naruto?! What did Tsunade-sama tell you?!” Naruto looked like a wounded puppy, and Sasuke had to resist the urge to hit Sakura.
“Sakura, who is that girl? What is she doing here, and why is she now on our team?” Sasuke had opted for the same indifferent tone that Tsukiko had used before she had left. What Tsukiko had said had hurt him a little bit. Sure, he had left for selfish reasons, but why did she leave?
Sakura sighed as she realized that every one was looking at her. “That is Tsukiko Nanashi. She was once a S-Class missing nin. Just earlier today, she showed up on the outside of the village. Apparently Naruto here carried her to the Hokage’s office after she had been chased by the ANBU, who were too afraid to do much with her. She showed up a bloody mess. It’s amazing that she can even stand now.
“After Naruto managed to carry her to Tsunade’s office, Tsunade healed her. The extents of her injuries are this.” She pulled out a piece of paper that had Tsukiko’s address on it, Tsunade had written all of Tsukiko’s injuries on the back of the paper for Sakura. It would come in handy in case one of Tsukiko’s injuries weren’t completely healed and she started to bleed suddenly. Sakura would then be able to figure out where the bleeding was coming from and completely heal the girl with out problems.
Sakura cleared her suddenly dry throat. “A shattered right hand, destroyed cardiac muscles, internal bleeding, liquid in the lungs.” She paused at the next one, still unable to get over how any one could do such a thing to the 15-year-old girl. “They tried to twist her leg off at the knee, the bone broke, and the muscle and flesh was torn up around the bone. The bone showed through. Over her heart is a kanji, it says killer, it was traced over with a blade and then chemicals were poured into the wound. Her intestines were destroyed from the inside, there were numerous deep cuts on her back, all of which had chemicals poured in them. She almost lost her eyes, her throat was ripped up, and her left foot, which was left untreated, was smashed.”
Sakura paused, noticing that most of the people had paled, and Lee had come over to her to wrap an arm around her waist. She was unaware of the violent shaking that wracked her body. “It’s surprising that she could even walk. It took most of the medic nins, Tsunade, me, and Naruto’s abundance of chakra to heal her. How she can stand on her left foot is beyond me. How she even managed to make it here, and I’m sure that her injuries before that were worse, is even more of a mystery. There were marks on her arms, it looked like some one had pushed hot needles through her flesh and tore the needles out. The needles kept the flesh with them.
“The torture this girl went through, you’ve no idea as to how painful it must have been.” She took a deep breath and briefly realized that Ten Ten had thrown up. “This girl, she’ll not be able to trust any one completely for a while. You understand, right, Naruto?” Sakura asked the boy who looked like he greatly wished that he had not said what he had. Sasuke, too, looked rather pale and scared to death. There was actually one more item on that list, but she wasn’t about to say it out loud. Tsukiko would tell them if she wanted to.
“Who could have done such a thing?” Asked an outraged Ino. “I mean, she didn’t look like she could hurt a fly, did she?” The kunoichi asked the whole room who nodded in agreement. Kakashi, Gai, Kurenai, and Asuma all knew exactly how the girl had managed to survive so far. They knew that she must have a demon in her. They had learned to trust Naruto, but this girl seemed unstable, and they weren’t too sure as to if they could trust her.
Kakashi turned on the stereo that he had brought, loud dancing music blared out over every one. “Well, I suppose that we’ll take care of this tomorrow!” Kurenai shouted. “For tonight, lets just celebrate Sasuke’s return!” She shouted again and punched the air.
Sasuke still looked indifferent and cold as he walked over to the wall to lean up against it. ‘That girl’s strange. She disturbs every one, even me. What’s with her aura? She’s like Gaara, she has that same strange aura with a killing intent in it…’ He thought, staring at Sakura, who was currently dancing with Lee. ‘Guess Sakura gave in finally, oh, look at that. Chouji and Ino are dancing.’ He had spotted the two teammates dancing next to each other.
‘Exactly how much did I miss while I was gone?’ He noticed that Naruto had walked up to him, two plates, each with a piece of vanilla cake and strawberry icing, balanced on the inside of his right arm while he carried two cups filled with a punch of sorts.
“Sasuke, why are you standing over here all alone? Have some cake and punch!” Naruto said in his usual happy voice. He had noticed that Sasuke looked rather troubled and had decided that his friend needed some one to cheer him up.
“Usuratonkachi*.” Was Naruto’s response, who got a little annoyed. “Is that cake safe to eat, or did some one reliable make it?”
“I made it, Sakura helped. She taught me how to cook well, so be glade and thank her later.” Yes, the last time he had made something for the team was still clear in his mind. The cookies had looked great, and smelled great, but they tasted really bad. After one bite, which Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi-sensei had swallowed to be nice, every one had thrown up. The whole team was bed-ridden for a week. It turns out that Naruto had accidentally put too much baking soda, and way to many eggs, in the cookies, which hadn’t cooked all the way through. ((I think you’re supposed to use baking powder, not baking soda, so that’s another plus for the mistakes!))
Sasuke silently took the plate that looked like it was about to fall, along with the cup of punch. Looking at the punch, he saw that it is pink. “Pink lemonade!” Naruto explained.Sasuke looked at him like he was crazy. “Usuratonkachi, you’re not supposed to drink lemonade with cake! It clashes horribly!” He shouted above the music, but only Naruto could hear him.
“No, we added a lot of sugar to the lemonade. It should go fine. I don’t think it’s sour in the least bit.” He said before taking a drink of the juice. “It’s too sweet!” Naruto had almost thrown up at the sickly sweet taste that the lemonade had.
Sasuke sighed. “You should have gotten milk, or water even. Both go good with cake…” He had put his cup on the plate and was currently pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. ‘Head ach, go away, please…’
Naruto shoving a bite of cake in his mouth suddenly surprised Sasuke. “I know you’re just procrastinating eating the cake!” Naruto was half expecting Sasuke to throw up, he wasn’t sure he got the recipe quite right that time. What he wasn’t expecting was Sasuke taking the fork out of his mouth and swallowing what had been shoved into his mouth.
“Usuratonkachi, looks like you finally did something right. This cake is good.” No, he wouldn’t yell at the idiot at the moment, he would wait for later. He didn’t notice that Neji was looking extremely jealous and had started to walk over to where the two of them stood.
“Naruto, how have you been?” Neji asked after walking up right behind the boy and putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Neji! Don’t scare me like that!” Naruto exclaimed as he turned around to look at Neji. “I’m fine, by the way. I’m just having Sasuke try the cake that I made, it’s really good.” ‘Or so he says.’
Neji smiled. “You mean the vanilla cake with the strawberry frosting?” At a nod from Naruto, Neji continued. “I already had a piece, it was really good.” True, it did taste good, but nowhere near as good as the bakery’s, though this is Naruto we’re talking about. The perfect boy, the one Neji wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
Sasuke knew exactly what Neji was trying to do, but didn’t care much at the moment, for his head was killing him. The music didn’t help either. Absent-mindedly, he started to eat his cake. It tasted good, really good. That might just be because he had had hardly anything good at all to eat while in the Sound. That place was as poor as a homeless person along side the street.
He took a sip of the drink and almost threw up. Naruto wasn’t kidding when he said that they had added to much sugar. “Neji, as a fair warning, don’t drink the lemonade. You’ll die.” He choked out as he coughed, the sweet sugar stinging his throat.
Naruto moved to his side and started to hit him on the back, thinking that Sasuke was choking. A hand came up and swatted him away. “I’m fine, don’t worry.” Sasuke continued his indifferent tone of voice as he stopped coughing.
Neji looked like he was about to kill Sasuke. ‘How dare that bastard steal Naruto’s attention away from me like that!’ He thought, hiding his murderous intent since it would draw looks from the rest of the people in the room.
“Sorry, but I’ve got to go. I’m really tired, and I’ve been traveling non stop for the past three days.” Sasuke said to Naruto after he had finished up his cake and managed to swallow the rest of the lemonade with out dying. ‘I’ll get some water afterwards to clear my throat up.’ The sugar had coated itself on the inside of this throat, causing it to hurt.
Naruto frowned for a few seconds before nodding. “Make sure to meet us at the bridge at 8 A.M., we’ll go get Tsukiko, since she left before we could tell her where and when she could meet us, and the go to granny Tsunade’s office. We’ll be starting on a mission as soon as we get there. Something about protecting a feudal lord’s daughter while she travels to her wedding. Neji’s team is coming as well, we need lot of people to help with the protection.” Naruto explained to Sasuke before the boy raised his arm into the air, waving slightly a good bye.
Neji sighed a sigh of relief when the Uchiha left, since he wanted to talk to Naruto with out any one else around. Poor Hinata, when the girl finds out that her ‘niisan‘ has a crush on the boy she’s admired for years, she’ll flip. He laughed slightly to himself before turning to Naruto.
“Oiy, Naruto, what do you think of the mission tomorrow?” Neji asked, while trying to be as inconspicuous as possible as he slowly inched closer to Naruto. The blond had been watching Sasuke take off. ‘I wonder if it’s because of me. Every one’s leaving, and I think it’s my fault…’ He hadn’t even heard Neji’s question.
The confused Chuunin walked up behind Naruto and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Naruto?” He shook the shoulder slightly; trying to get the boy to come back from whatever fantasy world he had put himself into.
“Huh?” Naruto asked as he turned around. “Oh, Neji! Sorry, I was kind of lost in thought.” Naruto said with a sheepish look on his face.
Neji nodded. “It’s ok. What I wanted to know was what you think of the mission we’ll be going on tomorrow. Do you think it’ll be easy, or hard?” The Byaakugan user asked.
Naruto thought for a moment. “I think it’ll be pretty easy, though it’ll be exciting too. I can’t wait for us to leave!” He said in his usual enthusiastic tone of voice.
Neji smiled and nodded before Sakura stood up on a chair, a cup of the sickly sweet lemonade in her hands. Kakashi had turned off the music, and every one now looked at the pink haired kunoichi that stood in the middle of the floor on a chair. “This is a party to celebrate two things! Team 7’s fourth member, who was upset recently, and Sasuke’s return!” Sakura knew that Sasuke had left, and in truth, she wanted to leave soon as well.
“Unfortunately, both people are missing from this party, there fore, we’ve either got to come up with an idea, or leave the party with out a meaning!” She shouted over the heads of every one in the room.
“Lets leave the party with out a meaning!” Some one shouted, other’s nodded in agreement. “Well, I guess that means that this party has no meaning!” Sakura shouted before jumping off of the chair to walk up to Naruto and Neji, who were both talking. Neji trying to get close enough to Naruto to give the boy a brief hug with out being noticed.
Every one in the village, except Naruto, knew that Neji had a crush on the boy. Naruto, who’s well, Naruto, would most likely never notice.
“Naruto! Neji! You guys should be dancing, not standing out here talking.” She almost had to shout since the music was turned back on, and the volume was up pretty high. “Come on! Lets go dance!”
Naruto shook his head. “You should be watching the punch bowl.” He nodded to the red bowl next to the bowl with the lemonade in it. “I think I just saw some one pour something in it. The person looked like Kurenai.”
Sakura laughed. “Well I guess it’s good that no one’s been thirsty enough to drink the punch. We don’t want minors drinking and getting drunk.” Of course Kurenai must have been drunk already for her to spike the punch bowel when she knew that there were minors at this party. “I guess that we’ll be taking care of our sensei’s tomorrow morning, huh?” She laughed after saying this and started to pull Naruto and Neji out to the dance floor.
Naruto broke out of her clutches, thankfully, and made an excuse to go home. “I’m sorry, Sakura-chan, but I’m just too tired. I’ve been up since 5 A.M. and it doesn’t help that I’ve used a lot of chakra already.” Sakura nodded, and Neji, who had been unfortunate in the fact that he had yet to pull away from her, suffered greatly when she started to dance with him.
Naruto quickly left the party and started to walk off to his apartment. Halfway there, he thought he felt eyes on his back, but shrugged off the feeling. It was probably just some stupid drunk adult that wanted to beat him up. ‘Annoying adults, always thinking of stupid things like that.’ He thought as he reached the ¾ mark.
When the eyes hadn’t left him by the time he was 10 ft away from his building, he turned around to confront whom ever it was that had decided to try to attack him tonight.
Surprise etched itself across his face as he noticed that no one was there. Shrugging again, he continued on, hoping that the feeling would go away. Before he could reach his apartment building, he was abruptly pulled into the tight alleyway between the apartment building and the building next to it.
Before he could yell or do anything to get the person away from him, another pair of lips found their way to his as he was kissed harshly. Naruto lost his breath as his mind refused to function. Before he could gather his thoughts, which had scattered at being surprised like this, the person disappeared, leaving the poor boy standing dumbfounded in the alleyway, relying on the wall for support.
“Who was that?” Naruto questioned no one in particular. He hadn’t gotten to see the face of the person, so he was unable to tell who had just kissed him, but the person’s chakra felt familiar. “Well duh, you’ve obviously met them before, so there’s no sense in dwelling over it. You’ll tell your team tomorrow, they’ll laugh at you, tell you that you were asleep, and you’ll forget all about it.”
Naruto walked into his house, trying desperately to forget what had just happened, and failing miserably. When he got inside, he walked to the bathroom, where he took a rather hot shower, not noticing the scolding water, and then quickly got dressed for bed. He still wore those teddy bear pajamas, not wanting to get rid of them.
Turning off the last light in the house, Naruto laid down in his bed and pulled the covers up over his head. Sleep came quickly, due to that day’s mental and physical drain on his body.
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When Naruto reached his house, Sasuke had changed his mind on trying to talk to the boy. Instead, he grabbed Naruto and pulled him into the alleyway. Giving Naruto no time to come to his senses about was happening, Sasuke kissed him hard on his lips. Before Naruto could think or react in any way, Sasuke disappeared, realizing exactly what he had done.
When he reached his house, he kicked the unlocked door down and stormed in. Closing and locking the door behind him, Sasuke walked to the kitchen and started to make some green tea. He needed to calm down, or he’d destroy the next living thing that came across his path.
“I can’t believe I just kissed him!” Yes, Uchiha Sasuke was shouting to no one, and on top of that, he was a bright red as a tomato. “Now he’s really going to hate me. I hope he didn’t realize who it was that was kissing him…” He said in a much calmer voice once his tea had been made and he had taken a sip of it.
“I guess we’ll have to see what kind of damage was done tomorrow. I hope it’s nothing that can’t be fixed.” If you’ve guessed by now that the Uchiha was head over heels in love with Naruto, give yourself 10 points, since that’s exactly the situation! He’d known it since the fight against Haku, when he had jumped in to save the idiot from death. Of course, he had been confused about his feelings towards Naruto for a week or so afterwards, but once he had talked to Kakashi about it, everything had sorted out in his brain.
Finishing up his tea, he walked to his bathroom to take another shower. He didn’t feel like going to bed while he was still slightly sweaty due to Sakura’s house being so hot with every one in there at once. Quickly, he made his way out from under the spray of cold water; his hot water had yet to replenish itself, and then moved to his room. Before his already chilled skin could turn to ice, he pulled on his warmest and cleanest pair of pajamas he could find and laid down in bed, thinking of all the laundry he’d have to do tomorrow morning so that he would have something to wear on their mission.
To Sasuke, sleep was hard to come by that night. He kept thinking of what a big screw up he had managed to accomplish.
Sasuke, however, was no the only one that was having trouble sleeping. Hyuuga Neji had been walking along the street, having left shortly after Naruto had, wanting to talk to him, and he had seen what had happened in the alley way. Though, being too shocked at seeing Naruto suddenly grabbed and kissed, he didn’t do a thing to help him. When Sasuke disappeared, Neji had every intention of going after the Uchiha to kill him, but suddenly thought better of it. Thinking that taking Naruto away from the Uchiha would be more painful than death he could come up with.
Neji then walked home, thinking about Sasuke’s actions, and wanting nothing more than to make that boy suffer. He walked inside and soaked for a while in the rather large bath tube, with oils mixed in that smelled of several different flowers. Naruto had once told him that he liked the smell of those flowers, and Neji had the sudden thought that if Naruto liked the way he smelled, then Naruto would like him more. However, this has yet to be proven correct since Naruto has yet to notice that he loves him. Such a thick headed boy, though it did make him all the more cuter.
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Once the kettle let off a whistle, he pulled the flap on top of the ramen cup back and poured the water into the cup. Waiting, though being very impatient and pacing back and forth, Naruto started to think about what had happened the night before. “I wonder who that was…” He muttered as he pulled out a pair of chopsticks and started to eat his breakfast.
After he was finished eating, he quickly went to the bathroom, carrying a pair of clothing with him, and took a shower. After taking rather warm shower, he pulled on his clean clothing.
Unlike the outfit from last night, this one was meant for stealth. Kakashi already said that he was to be along side the road in hiding. It would be very suspicious, after all, if a really important looking person were to walk down the road with several others around her.
Today he had opted for a black suit that covered his whole body, kind of like a cat suit. Around his waist is a loose fitting dark gray belt with several different pockets, all of which were holding different weapons and scrolls. Instead of the normal green vest that a chuunin or jounin would wear, Naruto’s is black, to match his outfit. The cloth of his forehead protector is black this time, and is wrapped around his head. His shoes are black and are so thing that it’s really like wearing socks and not shoes.
Sure, Naruto wanted to wear his normal orange outfit, which he hadn’t gotten rid of quite yet, but that would give away his position, plus Kakashi would force him to change his clothing in order to get a less suspicious outfit. If he didn’t do so, the mission would be kept on hold. No, the outfit was the best that he had, but Naruto decided that plain would be best for the day.
Quickly, he made his way to the bridge, where all of his team members, not counting Tsukiko, had decided to meet. Well, they were going to go pick up the girl after they all arrived at the bridge, and Naruto hoped that for once Kakashi would show up on time, or be early, though those were very unlikely.
So, after locking his door and putting his key in one of the many pouches on the belt around his waist, Naruto took off towards the bridge.
When he arrived there, he realized that Kakashi wasn’t there, but Sasuke and Sakura were both waiting. Sasuke was dressed for stealth as well, though Sakura was dressed in a rather expensive looking white kimono with a black and gold obi. The kimono has about 5 or 6 layers, so Sakura would be hot, each one gradually becoming a darker shade of pink. There are cherry blossoms sewn on her kimono, each a different shade of pink. Sakura’s job was to walk by the Fire Lord’s daughter and talk to her, like a friend would. Under her kimono would be a bunch of weapons for her to use in a fight, along with an outfit that looked a lot like the one that Naruto is currently wearing.
“Sakura-chan, don’t tell me that Kakashi is late again.” Naruto said as he reached his two friends. At Sakura’s nod, Naruto sighed. “He hasn’t gotten any better at showing up on time. We’ll be waiting all day. I knew we should have set the meeting time to at least two hours before we need to show up.”
Sasuke sighed and looked to his right. “No, he’s on time, he’s just a little ways down the road.” At this, both Sakura and Naruto looked in the direction that Sasuke was currently pointing in. There was Kakashi, walking rather slowly, and holding his head.
“Sorry I’m late guys, but my head is killing me…” He said as he walked p to the three. “Kakashi, you didn’t happen to drink any of that punch last night, did you?” Was his reply.
When Kakashi nodded, Naruto started to laugh rather loudly. “Kurenai spiked the punch!” Kakashi just put his hands over his ears. “You know, you should really take some medicine for that.”
When Sakura sighed and walked up to Kakashi, Sasuke watched on in amazement as the girl’s hands started to glow green. In a few seconds, Kakashi’s hangover, along with his headache, were gone. “Thanks, Sakura.” Sakura laughed slightly. “We can’t have a disabled team member, it would slow us down. In any case, we ought to go pick up Tsukiko, so she can pass your test, Kakashi.”
Kakashi mentally groaned at having to give this test over again, and just started off towards her house. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I’ve got the bells.”
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Finally pulling out an outfit, she looked at it. A black long-sleeved shirt that would fit like a glove, a pair of just-as-tight, black pants, a pair of thin black socks, and a pair of black sandal shoes. Yeah, this would work well, if she could find her mask. Deciding that this was better than nothing, she pulled the outfit on and decided to continue to pull out things until she found what she was looking for.
About 10 or so minutes later she stood with a triumphant smile on her face. She had pulled out a mask that looked a lot like Kakashi’s and a black cloth forehead protector. ‘I’m glade that my brother decided to grab all of these things. Now I’m ready to go!’ No, she didn’t have any weapons, and she highly doubted that she would need them. Pulling the mask over her face and then pulling her hair up into a bun, she covered the top of her head with her forehead protector, making sure that none of her hair showed. After all, white hair would show up quite easily on a black background.
Deciding to sit on her bed until her teammates showed up, since it would be near impossible to find them in Konoha, she pulled out a scroll that she had borrowed from Sakura. It had all of her team’s traits, moves, abilities, and so on and so forth. Kakashi’s was nearly blank, since Sakura didn’t know how many jutsus he copied, but still was a good source of information.
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Sakura turned to Kakashi. “Maybe they’re not home. Or maybe they’re not even awake yet, it is still pretty early in the morning.” However, Kakashi just shook his head ‘no’ and knocked again. He could tell that there were two people in that house, one that was at the back of the house, and one that was closer to the front.
The one person closest to the front started to move towards the door and opened it. There stood a tall 25-year-old man with a slightly tanned skin tone. His light brown hair went well with his warm brown eyes that had a slightly surprised look to them. He’s wearing the vest that a jounin or chuunin would wear along with a Konoha forehead protector on top of a normal, every day T-shirt with dark blue jeans and no shoes on.
“Can I do something for you four?” His voice was pleasant to listen to, and Sakura thought that he was quite handsome, though nothing compared to Lee.
Kakashi stepped forward again. “I’m Hatake Kakashi, I’m here to pick up your younger sister, Tsukiko Nanashi.” Kakashi had decided to use his serious voice for this, not wanting the man to think that he was an unsuitable teacher for his younger sister.
The man’s face darkened at the mention of his younger sister, but he moved to the side waving an arm to the empty house. “Come in and make yourselves comfortable in the living room. I’ll go get her.” The open door across the hall showed the living room, so team 7 walked into the hall way and then into the living room while the young man walked towards Tsukiko’s bedroom.
Kakashi sat down on one side of the table; Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke sat behind him. “I wonder why he doesn’t like his sister too much.” Sakura broke the silence that had fallen over the room.
Naruto gave her a questioning glance. “What do you mean? If he didn’t like his sister, then why should he have gone off to get her?” However, before any one could reply to this, the young man walked into the room with the girl in question slightly behind him, her eyes showed uncertainty, but you couldn’t ell if the rest of her body agreed with her eyes wince it was completely covered.
“I suppose you’d like to know a secret about her.” Tsukiko tensed up visibly as her brother pulled out a knife and grabbed her hand. Quickly, he pulled the knife across her palm and she watched as a shallow cut form, barely drawing blood, and then healed back up.
“See? She’s the perfect fighting machine.” The young man looked rather creepy now, a lot like Orochimaru would look if he were still alive. He had walked completely behind her and now held her wrist up in the air so that her arm was almost completely straight. The man had bent slightly over her left shoulder, the side of Tsukiko what wasn’t hoisted up into the air.
“She can’t feel emotions, I don’t know if you’ve seen that yet. She’s incapable of feeling pain, or anything along those lines. She’ll do whatever you tell her to do without question, even kill herself. Watch.” He leaned back, putting the knife in the girl’s hand. “Stab your left arm with this knife, make the injury deep.”
Tsukiko didn’t take her eyes off of the wall that she had been staring at, knowing already that Naruto had tried to get out of his seat; the only thing keeping him from attacking was Sakura and Sasuke grabbing his arms. Kakashi had a rather bored look on his face. Quickly, and without a second thought, Tsukiko stabbed herself, no sign of pain formed on her face.
After pulling out the knife, she used her injured arm to hand it to her older brother. Her blood fell to the ground, but she ignored it. This time it would take a while for the injury to heal. When she looked at her brother, who had yet to grab the knife, she saw that Naruto had managed to break free from his friends, who were also stand up and had stepped in between her and her brother.
“She can’t feel it, you know, so there’s no reason to be angry at me for her stabbing herself. Besides, she couldn’t have resisted the command any ways.” Tsukiko’s older brother said, sweat visible on his forehead due to the three death glares directed his way. While those three were distracted, Tsukiko’s arm healed itself.
“Let’s go, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Tsukiko. We’ve got a survival test to go through.” Kakashi said as he stood up. “By the way.” He turned to the young man. “If I find out that she can feel pain, then you’ll pay. It’s dishonorable for family to hurt each other, and it’s against my beliefs.”
Tsukiko’s brother nodded and watched as all five occupants of the room left.
Outside the house, Sakura rushed up to Tsukiko and looked at her left arm. “Why did you heal so quickly?” Concern laced her voice. It didn’t matter if Tsukiko got on their team or not, the girl was a friend, and any one treated that way at home deserved one person to care about them.
“He told you already, I’m a perfect machine. Even if I didn’t heal that fast, you wouldn’t have needed to heal me. I’m not able to feel pain, not physical pain any ways.” Tsukiko then turned to Kakashi. “Oh, Kakashi-sama, where are we training?”
Kakashi smiled under the cloth mask and looked at Tsukiko. “The training grounds on the outskirts of the village. That’s the best place for what we’re going to do. Did you eat breakfast?” At a shake of the head from the creepily indifferent girl Kakashi continued. “Good, because you’d most likely throw up from what we’re going to do.”
Tsukiko didn’t look convinced. “I highly doubt that I’d throw up if I ate any breakfast. I’m a good fighter, and a valuable asset to any team. I have faith that I’ll be able to pass whatever training you’re going to put me through. There’s nothing that I can’t do.”
“Quite arrogant for some one who can’t disobey orders.” Naruto muttered under his breath from his spot behind Sasuke. Sasuke just smiled, really happy to be back. Tsukiko, who, luckily for Naruto, didn’t hear what he said, continued to walk on, ignoring most of the world and following Kakashi’s lead.
When they reached the training ground, Kakashi held up 3 bells instead of 2 this time. “Ok, Tsukiko, you have to get one of these bells. You may use any weapons, though I see you have none, jutsus, techniques, or fighting styles. Come at me like you’re going to kill me, and you’ve got until lunchtime to get a bell. If you pass, we’ll allow you on this team, if not, then you lose the right to ever become a kunoichi.”
Tsukiko nodded and waited for Kakashi to say start. After what felt like forever, Kakashi looked up at the sky. “You may begin.”
At that simple sentence, she rushed forward and practically disappeared. Kakashi looked around, slightly surprised since she wasn’t the only one. Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto had disappeared as well.
“Oiy! Look behind you!” Tsukiko shouted to Kakashi as she rushed at him with her fist drawn back. Kakashi grabbed her fist, it had almost hit him in the face, and she used her momentum to carry her to her right. When she reached his side, she pulled forward, bending low over the ground, an attempt to flip Kakashi. Much to her dismay, Kakashi had seen this coming and had landed on his feet instead of his back.
Once Kakashi landed, Tsukiko rushed forward in an attempt to set him off balance. Lucky for her, this worked, but when Kakashi hit the ground, a cloud of smoke formed and a log appeared. Turning around quickly, she caught the fist that had almost connected with her head.
Thinking quickly, she pushed Kakashi into a tree and held him there. “Say, Kakashi, I’m going to borrow one of your hands.” Then she started to form seals using Kakashi’s right hand and her left hand. A tap on her shoulder stopped her and she turned around to receive a punch to the face.
“I’m sure that the tree would have loved that water jutsu that you were about to use, however I’m not too sure about my clone.” A bored looking Kakashi stated from where he was standing while a frustrated looking Tsukiko stood up from her spot on the ground.
“You’re good, but not good enough.” Smirking, she brought her hands up in the seal of the tiger. Kakashi, thinking that she was going to start a fire jutsu, started to run towards her, trying to stop her before she could finish the seals. However, much to Kakashi’s surprise, a rain of weapons came down on his head, all missing him, but that wasn’t the reason why she did this.
Tsukiko rushed forward and made a desperate lung for the bells, though to her horror she found that Kakashi was using Kawarimi and Henge no jutsu together again. Letting a stream of curses under her breath, she stood still, trying to sense his chakra signals. To her annoyance, that didn’t work.
Kakashi, who was watching amused from a tree, wondered where Tsukiko got the weapons. She didn’t have any on her when they picked her up, and his students had disappeared as well. Though his thoughts were broken when the tree caught fire. Jumping into the clearing, he saw Tsukiko look his way and she disappeared again, though not in a puff of smoke as she would have had she used the teleporting jutsu, she just vanished.
The girl showed up behind him and bent straight down while bringing her right heel up, hitting Kakashi in the back of his head, causing her foot to go straight through it. ‘A normal Buunshin no jutsu, this bites. He’s toying with me!’ She thought angrily, though keeping calm, she looked up in time to dodge a weapon.
Surprise etched itself across Kakashi’s face at the enormous amount of chakra that the girl was now giving off. She formed the seal of the rat and a fireball came his way. Quickly getting out of the fireball’s way, he didn’t notice the elbow that managed to find his stomach. Having not getting time to prepare himself, Kakashi flew backwards.
“I hope that you’re not getting tired, Kakashi.” Tsukiko was using a taunting voice. When she made the seal of the horse, a few clones appeared out of nowhere, looking just like her. Then it hit Kakashi. It may look like Tsukiko was fighting alone, but in that short time; she had managed to set up a system of seals that would correspond to different jutsus and techniques.
To Kakashi’s amusement, Tsukiko took up Sasuke’s favorite stance. “Now I’m going to get serious.” She said in a rather annoyed voice as she rushed at Kakashi.
Kakashi pulled up his forehead protector. If he wanted to test this girl to her fullest, he would have to use the sharingan. He barely had time to register anything before Tsukiko made the sign of the rat and a large water dragon appeared out of nowhere.
Kakashi barely managed to do the same jutsu, having copied it before, when a dragon of ice appeared and froze all the water, and almost catching him.
Then he made his mistake, not paying attention to the girl and looking more for the next jutsu. When Tsukiko appeared behind him and landed a blow to the back of his head, Kakashi was more than surprised. He was even more surprised when the girl didn’t give him the chance to counter or block, but followed through by hitting him several times in the gut. Not getting enough time to form the seals for Kawarimi No Jutsu, he took every blow the girl landed. Like Lee, she must have focused mainly on taijutsu all her life, since she was rather strong.
He quickly found his back to a tree, which snapped in half when he managed to duck his head and kick the girl after her fist connected with the tree. Kakashi didn’t give the girl enough time to react, or even hit the ground, before he slammed his fist into her stomach. Her eyes snapped open and she grabbed his elbow before he could bring his arm away, effectively pulling him to the round with her.
Much to Kakashi’s dismay, she formed some strange seal that wasn’t any known to the ninja, probably just a random hand gesture that she created. He was pretty surprised when nothing happened. When he looked down to where Tsukiko was, all he saw was a pile of dirt. ‘That’s odd, what happened.’
While Kakashi failed to realize that he was caught in a genjutsu, Tsukiko snuck up to him and grabbed one of the bells. Shortly after, Kakashi blinked, having sent chakra through his body, since he had started to watch Obito talk to a younger version of himself, and noticing that it was a genjutsu.
As soon as Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke saw Tsukiko hold up the bell, a look of triumph on her face, they reappeared by her side. “This was too easy, I’ve already been through this type of training before, the exact same training.” Tsukiko said in her rather creepy monotone voice.
“So, this bell belongs to the group. If we had just gotten out of the academy, I’d say that we pass and go on to the genin level together with this bell alone, but that’s not the case. Instead, I’ll say that I pass by saying that we are a team, and as a team we work together, as a unit. No one gets left behind.” The exact same thing her teacher had told them when she first went through this exam. They had used the exact same strategy the second time around that they had used here. There was nothing different from that time to this time.
Kakashi pulled his forehead protector down over his Sharingan eye and sighed. “You’ve gotten me beat, of course, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura are all a few levels above you, but that’ll change rather quickly. You’ll be on their level with training. Welcome to the team, Tsukiko Nanashi.” He had smiled and then turned towards the meeting place at the gates out of Konoha. “Well, we’d best be on our way now.”
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Usuratonkachi=Dumb ass, one of Sasuke’s many names for Naruto.
I’m sorry for the differences in how I type and write and such. The quality of my work depends on how my day went, and since I’m not typing this all in one sitting, *There’s no way in hell that I could pull that off* my writing will go from sloppy to passable to great in one chapter, some times any ways. For those of you who read further into the story, this takes place almost right after Naruto comes back from his near three year long training. Before Gaara was kidnapped. Yes, I did read further, but I had started to type stuff that didn’t bode well with what happened afterwards, so yeah….
Well, I guess I gave you Sasuke/Naruto fans out there something to cheer about, Sasuke got Naruto’s second kiss, and it was a real kiss, not a mistake like the first time. Those that are Neji/Naruto fans, you can hate me until the next chapter, you might get something that you like ^.~.
Until next time, see ya!
This story takes place up to just after Naruto comes home, before he goes after the people who kidnapped Gaara.
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With Sasuke
After I had killed Orochimaru, I carried his body, in a sack, as quickly as I could to Konoha. Tsunade said that if he came back with the body, he would be welcomed back with no questions. To make sure that this wouldn’t happen in the near future, he had destroyed most of the Sound village, and killed all the powerful shinobi, along with Kabuto. The medic nin didn’t seem to put up much of a fight afterwards, since he practically fell apart at the seams when he saw me kill Orochimaru. The whole thing was really very easy.I had put poison in Orochimaru’s food for dinner that night. When the snake ate his dinner, I challenged him to a sparring match. He had loved it when we fought, constantly trying to see exactly how strong his next vessel would be. Tonight, however, he had fallen in our battle. The poison kicked in half way through, and no one, not even Kabuto, knew what was happening. No one could help him in time even if they did realize what I had done. All it took was a sword through the heart and a blade in his neck. Other than that, there are no more injuries on his body.
When Kabuto saw this, he freaked out. I turned to him, and as he tried to get away, I threw another sword at him, which he did dodge, but who said that was my real attack? Instead, I had snuck up on him, having copied Naruto’s Kage Buunshin no Jutsu in our battle at the Valley of the End, and killed that bastard quite easily. All it took was sending Chidori through his chest. From there, it was easy.
The people scattered, but they were no match for me. Orochimaru prided himself in training me himself, he had yet allowed me to summon snakes, but it’s not like I would want to learn such a technique.
Well, after three days traveling, luckily I had put preservatives on Orochimaru’s body to keep him from rotting; I’m now on the outskirts of Konoha. Silently, I walk up to the gate, only to see most of the village there, waiting for me. Suddenly, every one rushed at me, but no one was faster than a pink blur, which threw her arms around me immediately. “Sasuke! Sasuke! I’m so happy you’re back!”
“Sakura?” I asked, every thing seemed so surreal. Must be because I didn’t expect such a nice welcome-back party. Every one else was congratulating me on a job well done. ‘I guess Tsunade told them all I was a double agent.’ I thought as a blond haired tan skinned shinobi, along with a white haired girl walked up to me.
“Yeah, Sasuke, we’re here to welcome you back.” Naruto replied, I was a little surprised to see the indifferent white haired girl standing beside him, but I didn’t say anything about it.
“Sasuke!” Sakura finally released him. “We’re going to my house, me, Naruto, Kakashi, and Tsukiko here.” She pointed at the girl, who nodded at me in greeting.
“Sasuke! Where’s Orochimaru’s body?” Tsunade asked from behind Naruto. At her question, the entire crowd shut up, not really wanting to talk about Orochimaru.
“His body is in this bag. No need to worry, he’s dead, I checked. There’s no way that he could survive two stab wounds from a sword.” Sasuke said, his shields going up at once. His voice sounded as cold as ever, and his face looked just a cold. The forehead protector for the sound wasn’t on his head, meaning that he did come back of his own free will. Other than his height and his muscle tone, nothing had changed. He had grown a little bit more in muscle mass, that’s it.
As Tsunade walked up to him, pulling her apprentice off of him, Sasuke put the bag on the ground. One could easily tell that there was a man inside that bag, since a hand had fallen out of it, and the bag sagged around the body. “I had to preserve his body, so that he wouldn’t smell on the way here.” Sasuke explained the perfect condition that his former ‘sensei’ was in.
Tsunade nodded before whispering in his ear. “You should get cleaned up and go to Sakura’s party. It’s been a nice welcome back celebration.” Of course she knew that not every one would completely trust Sasuke, and he probably wouldn’t be allowed to go on any really dangerous missions for a while, since he was still a technical genin, but that would easily change. She had gotten the elders to agree to letting Sasuke compete in the up-coming chuunin entrance exam, and she had gotten Sasuke’s full team, though Sakura and Naruto wouldn’t be in the last exam, along with Tsukiko, to be allowed to join him in it. The exam was now taken in teams of four, since her new rule required a medic nin on every team, and that put a fourth member on each team.
Sasuke nodded and rushed off home, Naruto had replaced his body with a shadow clone and a Henge no Jutsu to keep every one there. The Sasuke clone acted like the real Sasuke, even though Naruto, Sakura, the real Sasuke, and Tsukiko had taken off, the clone remained.
Sasuke immediately went to his house, Tsukiko and Sakura went to Sakura’s house, and Naruto went to his home to get ready.
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With Sasuke
Sasuke got to his house, and found it exactly as he had left it. A little dusty, but still as he had left it. The Uchiha walked to his bathroom, seeing soap and shampoo still there, along with towels, he decided that a shower would be good. He still had running water; he found this out when his shower still worked.Stripping quickly and quietly as the running water sent all the dust in the bottom of the tub down the drain in a black mixture, he brushed out all the knots in his multi-length hair. His shower was warm, and welcomed. After rinsing out a washcloth, he cleaned his dirty and slightly battered body of the five or so inches of sweat and grime that covered it. Bathing had been a luxury that he didn’t get on his travels. It was quite the good thing that he hadn’t any need to go into a town.
His hair was just as dirty as his body. He had to wash his hair several times with the shampoo in order to get all the dirt off of his scalp and all the oil out of his hair. ‘I’m never going to go this long with out a bath again.’ He thought as he turned off the faucet and rung all the water out of his hair. His towels, which were in a cabinet that got no air circulation, were just as white and fluffy as they were when he had left since they did not get dust on them.
After towel drying off and drying his hair out the rest of the way, he quickly went to find another out fit, his normal shirt, disconnected sleeves, shorts, and shoes, these were all in a closet that saw no sunlight, and had no dust. A little annoyed that the clothing was too small, he went off to look for something decent that he could wear.
An outfit that Naruto had gotten him the year that he had left for his birthday caught his eye. Since the usuratonkachi didn’t know which size of clothing he wore, Naruto had bought it a little big. Quickly, he pulled the outfit on, finding that the clothes were still a little too big, but would do.
What the usuratonkachi had bought him turned out to be a form fitting black button-up silk shirt, and a pair of black jeans. ‘Why did Naruto buy me this?’ The shirt almost reached his knees, since it was still a little big in the length, and the pants were rather baggy. Next, he turned to the accessories that Naruto had gotten him. A pair of black socks, black tennis shoes, and what the fuck?! A bottle of liquid eyeliner!? ‘This has to be a joke! No, I’m not /ever/ going to wear make up.’ A chain necklace made up of silver sat on top of every thing. Quickly, he put on what was left, and took off.
Sasuke ran as fast as he could with out getting all sweaty again. He reached Sakura’s house and knocked on the door. The same girl with white and, now that he could see better, pale blue hair opened the door. “Hello there. The party is just about to start. Of the other ninja here, there is Hinata-sama, Kiba-sama, Shino-sama, Neji-sama, Ten Ten-sama, Lee-sama, Ino-sama, Chouji-sama, Shikamaru-sama, Kurenai-sensei, Asuma-sensei, Gai-sensei, Naruto-sama, Sakura-sama, Kakashi-sensei, and myself. Do any of these people make you feel threatened?”
((I’m taking this out of Sasuke’s POV, it’s getting quite annoying…))
You could tell that she had rehearsed these lines, though that might be her normal tone, she spoke with out emotion. Every word sounded like the last. Sasuke shook his head and stepped inside when she moved off to the side. “No, I don’t think any one here, except maybe Naruto, could beat me in a fight.” Tsukiko nodded and moved back over to Sakura.
The reason why Tsukiko continually stood by Sakura was the girl was kind to her, she did not want to talk to some one who was not so. Sakura immediately started introducing Tsukiko to Lee, who started a speech about the flame of youth. Lee had grown his hair out, and managed to make it lie flat, Sakura liked his hair better this way.
Naruto walked up to Sasuke immediately, and Sasuke took a mental note that Naruto had changed his wardrobe. Instead of the heavy coat, the usuratonkachi had put on a dark orange T-shirt that hung off of him loosely, probably for better fighting and less clothing restrictions. Black shorts covered him from his waist down, and he’s still got that stupid swirl symbol, only that is on his pant legs, on the outside, instead of on his shoulders.
Sasuke also took a mental note that Neji was looking a little bit jealous, since Naruto had left the Byaakugan user to talk to him. “Sasuke! Every one’s so happy that you’re back!” The over active and rather hyper chuunin yelled.
People stopped talking briefly to nod their heads in agreement before they continued to talk. “Um, is there anything that I’ve missed? How many tests do I have to take to catch up with you two?”
Naruto thought for a moment. “Well, every one’s still at chuunin level, except Shikamaru, he’s a jounin. Oh, Tsukiko! Come over here for a moment!” He had managed to talk to the girl a few minutes before Sasuke showed up. The girl walked over to the two friends and looked at Naruto.
“Yes, Naruto-sama?” She still had that extremely creepy monotone voice. “You needed something?”
Naruto nodded. “What level are you at? Chuunin, jounin, genin? If you’re above me and Sakura, then we’ll all have to take tests to continue to be on the same team.”
Tsukiko said this as briefly as she could. “I’m a chuunin. Is that all?” She didn’t like talking to the hyper active blonde, his voice got annoying quickly.
Naruto shook his head. “You and Sasuke have to talk for a while, it’s no good to have team mates that won’t cooperate with each other because they do not know each other.”
Tsukiko gave Naruto a glare. “You are keeping a secret from every one, so do not say that I’m to tell him, or any one else, about myself. I’m sorry if I sound rude, Naruto-sama, but no one knows the ‘real’ you either, do they? Maybe one or two of the kids, you’ve probably told Sakura, but that’s it.” Her voice had suddenly gone cold, so much so that every one looked at her.
Naruto looked annoyed. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but a S-Class missing nin doesn’t talk down to me!” He received a hard slap and his cheek turned red. “Hey! What did you do that for?”
“You will /never/ speak about that again. That was not my fault. Sasuke here was a missing nin just like me. We’ve both returned to the village, so why is it that you only accept him back? Is it because I didn’t grow up around you?” She paused to take a breath, Tsukiko’s voice had gone deadly, and a lesser man than Naruto would have cowered in a corner. “Or are you just letting your past get in the way?”
Quickly, Tsukiko turned on her heel and walked to the door. “Sakura-sama, I will return your clothing tomorrow. I wish all of you a good night.” She had quickly returned to her indifferent expression and voice. Tsukiko threw open the door and ran out, not bothering to close it behind her.
Sakura walked up to Naruto and started to yell at him. “What in the hell was that about, eh, Naruto?! What did Tsunade-sama tell you?!” Naruto looked like a wounded puppy, and Sasuke had to resist the urge to hit Sakura.
“Sakura, who is that girl? What is she doing here, and why is she now on our team?” Sasuke had opted for the same indifferent tone that Tsukiko had used before she had left. What Tsukiko had said had hurt him a little bit. Sure, he had left for selfish reasons, but why did she leave?
Sakura sighed as she realized that every one was looking at her. “That is Tsukiko Nanashi. She was once a S-Class missing nin. Just earlier today, she showed up on the outside of the village. Apparently Naruto here carried her to the Hokage’s office after she had been chased by the ANBU, who were too afraid to do much with her. She showed up a bloody mess. It’s amazing that she can even stand now.
“After Naruto managed to carry her to Tsunade’s office, Tsunade healed her. The extents of her injuries are this.” She pulled out a piece of paper that had Tsukiko’s address on it, Tsunade had written all of Tsukiko’s injuries on the back of the paper for Sakura. It would come in handy in case one of Tsukiko’s injuries weren’t completely healed and she started to bleed suddenly. Sakura would then be able to figure out where the bleeding was coming from and completely heal the girl with out problems.
Sakura cleared her suddenly dry throat. “A shattered right hand, destroyed cardiac muscles, internal bleeding, liquid in the lungs.” She paused at the next one, still unable to get over how any one could do such a thing to the 15-year-old girl. “They tried to twist her leg off at the knee, the bone broke, and the muscle and flesh was torn up around the bone. The bone showed through. Over her heart is a kanji, it says killer, it was traced over with a blade and then chemicals were poured into the wound. Her intestines were destroyed from the inside, there were numerous deep cuts on her back, all of which had chemicals poured in them. She almost lost her eyes, her throat was ripped up, and her left foot, which was left untreated, was smashed.”
Sakura paused, noticing that most of the people had paled, and Lee had come over to her to wrap an arm around her waist. She was unaware of the violent shaking that wracked her body. “It’s surprising that she could even walk. It took most of the medic nins, Tsunade, me, and Naruto’s abundance of chakra to heal her. How she can stand on her left foot is beyond me. How she even managed to make it here, and I’m sure that her injuries before that were worse, is even more of a mystery. There were marks on her arms, it looked like some one had pushed hot needles through her flesh and tore the needles out. The needles kept the flesh with them.
“The torture this girl went through, you’ve no idea as to how painful it must have been.” She took a deep breath and briefly realized that Ten Ten had thrown up. “This girl, she’ll not be able to trust any one completely for a while. You understand, right, Naruto?” Sakura asked the boy who looked like he greatly wished that he had not said what he had. Sasuke, too, looked rather pale and scared to death. There was actually one more item on that list, but she wasn’t about to say it out loud. Tsukiko would tell them if she wanted to.
“Who could have done such a thing?” Asked an outraged Ino. “I mean, she didn’t look like she could hurt a fly, did she?” The kunoichi asked the whole room who nodded in agreement. Kakashi, Gai, Kurenai, and Asuma all knew exactly how the girl had managed to survive so far. They knew that she must have a demon in her. They had learned to trust Naruto, but this girl seemed unstable, and they weren’t too sure as to if they could trust her.
Kakashi turned on the stereo that he had brought, loud dancing music blared out over every one. “Well, I suppose that we’ll take care of this tomorrow!” Kurenai shouted. “For tonight, lets just celebrate Sasuke’s return!” She shouted again and punched the air.
Sasuke still looked indifferent and cold as he walked over to the wall to lean up against it. ‘That girl’s strange. She disturbs every one, even me. What’s with her aura? She’s like Gaara, she has that same strange aura with a killing intent in it…’ He thought, staring at Sakura, who was currently dancing with Lee. ‘Guess Sakura gave in finally, oh, look at that. Chouji and Ino are dancing.’ He had spotted the two teammates dancing next to each other.
‘Exactly how much did I miss while I was gone?’ He noticed that Naruto had walked up to him, two plates, each with a piece of vanilla cake and strawberry icing, balanced on the inside of his right arm while he carried two cups filled with a punch of sorts.
“Sasuke, why are you standing over here all alone? Have some cake and punch!” Naruto said in his usual happy voice. He had noticed that Sasuke looked rather troubled and had decided that his friend needed some one to cheer him up.
“Usuratonkachi*.” Was Naruto’s response, who got a little annoyed. “Is that cake safe to eat, or did some one reliable make it?”
“I made it, Sakura helped. She taught me how to cook well, so be glade and thank her later.” Yes, the last time he had made something for the team was still clear in his mind. The cookies had looked great, and smelled great, but they tasted really bad. After one bite, which Sakura, Sasuke, and Kakashi-sensei had swallowed to be nice, every one had thrown up. The whole team was bed-ridden for a week. It turns out that Naruto had accidentally put too much baking soda, and way to many eggs, in the cookies, which hadn’t cooked all the way through. ((I think you’re supposed to use baking powder, not baking soda, so that’s another plus for the mistakes!))
Sasuke silently took the plate that looked like it was about to fall, along with the cup of punch. Looking at the punch, he saw that it is pink. “Pink lemonade!” Naruto explained.Sasuke looked at him like he was crazy. “Usuratonkachi, you’re not supposed to drink lemonade with cake! It clashes horribly!” He shouted above the music, but only Naruto could hear him.
“No, we added a lot of sugar to the lemonade. It should go fine. I don’t think it’s sour in the least bit.” He said before taking a drink of the juice. “It’s too sweet!” Naruto had almost thrown up at the sickly sweet taste that the lemonade had.
Sasuke sighed. “You should have gotten milk, or water even. Both go good with cake…” He had put his cup on the plate and was currently pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. ‘Head ach, go away, please…’
Naruto shoving a bite of cake in his mouth suddenly surprised Sasuke. “I know you’re just procrastinating eating the cake!” Naruto was half expecting Sasuke to throw up, he wasn’t sure he got the recipe quite right that time. What he wasn’t expecting was Sasuke taking the fork out of his mouth and swallowing what had been shoved into his mouth.
“Usuratonkachi, looks like you finally did something right. This cake is good.” No, he wouldn’t yell at the idiot at the moment, he would wait for later. He didn’t notice that Neji was looking extremely jealous and had started to walk over to where the two of them stood.
“Naruto, how have you been?” Neji asked after walking up right behind the boy and putting a hand on his shoulder.
“Neji! Don’t scare me like that!” Naruto exclaimed as he turned around to look at Neji. “I’m fine, by the way. I’m just having Sasuke try the cake that I made, it’s really good.” ‘Or so he says.’
Neji smiled. “You mean the vanilla cake with the strawberry frosting?” At a nod from Naruto, Neji continued. “I already had a piece, it was really good.” True, it did taste good, but nowhere near as good as the bakery’s, though this is Naruto we’re talking about. The perfect boy, the one Neji wanted to spend the rest of his life with.
Sasuke knew exactly what Neji was trying to do, but didn’t care much at the moment, for his head was killing him. The music didn’t help either. Absent-mindedly, he started to eat his cake. It tasted good, really good. That might just be because he had had hardly anything good at all to eat while in the Sound. That place was as poor as a homeless person along side the street.
He took a sip of the drink and almost threw up. Naruto wasn’t kidding when he said that they had added to much sugar. “Neji, as a fair warning, don’t drink the lemonade. You’ll die.” He choked out as he coughed, the sweet sugar stinging his throat.
Naruto moved to his side and started to hit him on the back, thinking that Sasuke was choking. A hand came up and swatted him away. “I’m fine, don’t worry.” Sasuke continued his indifferent tone of voice as he stopped coughing.
Neji looked like he was about to kill Sasuke. ‘How dare that bastard steal Naruto’s attention away from me like that!’ He thought, hiding his murderous intent since it would draw looks from the rest of the people in the room.
“Sorry, but I’ve got to go. I’m really tired, and I’ve been traveling non stop for the past three days.” Sasuke said to Naruto after he had finished up his cake and managed to swallow the rest of the lemonade with out dying. ‘I’ll get some water afterwards to clear my throat up.’ The sugar had coated itself on the inside of this throat, causing it to hurt.
Naruto frowned for a few seconds before nodding. “Make sure to meet us at the bridge at 8 A.M., we’ll go get Tsukiko, since she left before we could tell her where and when she could meet us, and the go to granny Tsunade’s office. We’ll be starting on a mission as soon as we get there. Something about protecting a feudal lord’s daughter while she travels to her wedding. Neji’s team is coming as well, we need lot of people to help with the protection.” Naruto explained to Sasuke before the boy raised his arm into the air, waving slightly a good bye.
Neji sighed a sigh of relief when the Uchiha left, since he wanted to talk to Naruto with out any one else around. Poor Hinata, when the girl finds out that her ‘niisan‘ has a crush on the boy she’s admired for years, she’ll flip. He laughed slightly to himself before turning to Naruto.
“Oiy, Naruto, what do you think of the mission tomorrow?” Neji asked, while trying to be as inconspicuous as possible as he slowly inched closer to Naruto. The blond had been watching Sasuke take off. ‘I wonder if it’s because of me. Every one’s leaving, and I think it’s my fault…’ He hadn’t even heard Neji’s question.
The confused Chuunin walked up behind Naruto and put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Naruto?” He shook the shoulder slightly; trying to get the boy to come back from whatever fantasy world he had put himself into.
“Huh?” Naruto asked as he turned around. “Oh, Neji! Sorry, I was kind of lost in thought.” Naruto said with a sheepish look on his face.
Neji nodded. “It’s ok. What I wanted to know was what you think of the mission we’ll be going on tomorrow. Do you think it’ll be easy, or hard?” The Byaakugan user asked.
Naruto thought for a moment. “I think it’ll be pretty easy, though it’ll be exciting too. I can’t wait for us to leave!” He said in his usual enthusiastic tone of voice.
Neji smiled and nodded before Sakura stood up on a chair, a cup of the sickly sweet lemonade in her hands. Kakashi had turned off the music, and every one now looked at the pink haired kunoichi that stood in the middle of the floor on a chair. “This is a party to celebrate two things! Team 7’s fourth member, who was upset recently, and Sasuke’s return!” Sakura knew that Sasuke had left, and in truth, she wanted to leave soon as well.
“Unfortunately, both people are missing from this party, there fore, we’ve either got to come up with an idea, or leave the party with out a meaning!” She shouted over the heads of every one in the room.
“Lets leave the party with out a meaning!” Some one shouted, other’s nodded in agreement. “Well, I guess that means that this party has no meaning!” Sakura shouted before jumping off of the chair to walk up to Naruto and Neji, who were both talking. Neji trying to get close enough to Naruto to give the boy a brief hug with out being noticed.
Every one in the village, except Naruto, knew that Neji had a crush on the boy. Naruto, who’s well, Naruto, would most likely never notice.
“Naruto! Neji! You guys should be dancing, not standing out here talking.” She almost had to shout since the music was turned back on, and the volume was up pretty high. “Come on! Lets go dance!”
Naruto shook his head. “You should be watching the punch bowl.” He nodded to the red bowl next to the bowl with the lemonade in it. “I think I just saw some one pour something in it. The person looked like Kurenai.”
Sakura laughed. “Well I guess it’s good that no one’s been thirsty enough to drink the punch. We don’t want minors drinking and getting drunk.” Of course Kurenai must have been drunk already for her to spike the punch bowel when she knew that there were minors at this party. “I guess that we’ll be taking care of our sensei’s tomorrow morning, huh?” She laughed after saying this and started to pull Naruto and Neji out to the dance floor.
Naruto broke out of her clutches, thankfully, and made an excuse to go home. “I’m sorry, Sakura-chan, but I’m just too tired. I’ve been up since 5 A.M. and it doesn’t help that I’ve used a lot of chakra already.” Sakura nodded, and Neji, who had been unfortunate in the fact that he had yet to pull away from her, suffered greatly when she started to dance with him.
Naruto quickly left the party and started to walk off to his apartment. Halfway there, he thought he felt eyes on his back, but shrugged off the feeling. It was probably just some stupid drunk adult that wanted to beat him up. ‘Annoying adults, always thinking of stupid things like that.’ He thought as he reached the ¾ mark.
When the eyes hadn’t left him by the time he was 10 ft away from his building, he turned around to confront whom ever it was that had decided to try to attack him tonight.
Surprise etched itself across his face as he noticed that no one was there. Shrugging again, he continued on, hoping that the feeling would go away. Before he could reach his apartment building, he was abruptly pulled into the tight alleyway between the apartment building and the building next to it.
Before he could yell or do anything to get the person away from him, another pair of lips found their way to his as he was kissed harshly. Naruto lost his breath as his mind refused to function. Before he could gather his thoughts, which had scattered at being surprised like this, the person disappeared, leaving the poor boy standing dumbfounded in the alleyway, relying on the wall for support.
“Who was that?” Naruto questioned no one in particular. He hadn’t gotten to see the face of the person, so he was unable to tell who had just kissed him, but the person’s chakra felt familiar. “Well duh, you’ve obviously met them before, so there’s no sense in dwelling over it. You’ll tell your team tomorrow, they’ll laugh at you, tell you that you were asleep, and you’ll forget all about it.”
Naruto walked into his house, trying desperately to forget what had just happened, and failing miserably. When he got inside, he walked to the bathroom, where he took a rather hot shower, not noticing the scolding water, and then quickly got dressed for bed. He still wore those teddy bear pajamas, not wanting to get rid of them.
Turning off the last light in the house, Naruto laid down in his bed and pulled the covers up over his head. Sleep came quickly, due to that day’s mental and physical drain on his body.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~
With Sasuke
Sasuke had waited outside, wanting to talk to Naruto. When he saw the boy leave the party, however, he was unable to walk up to him. Deciding to just follow along until he reached his house, thinking it would be easier to talk to the Usuratonkachi there, he took off after him, quickly and silently, using years of training to keep completely hidden.When Naruto reached his house, Sasuke had changed his mind on trying to talk to the boy. Instead, he grabbed Naruto and pulled him into the alleyway. Giving Naruto no time to come to his senses about was happening, Sasuke kissed him hard on his lips. Before Naruto could think or react in any way, Sasuke disappeared, realizing exactly what he had done.
When he reached his house, he kicked the unlocked door down and stormed in. Closing and locking the door behind him, Sasuke walked to the kitchen and started to make some green tea. He needed to calm down, or he’d destroy the next living thing that came across his path.
“I can’t believe I just kissed him!” Yes, Uchiha Sasuke was shouting to no one, and on top of that, he was a bright red as a tomato. “Now he’s really going to hate me. I hope he didn’t realize who it was that was kissing him…” He said in a much calmer voice once his tea had been made and he had taken a sip of it.
“I guess we’ll have to see what kind of damage was done tomorrow. I hope it’s nothing that can’t be fixed.” If you’ve guessed by now that the Uchiha was head over heels in love with Naruto, give yourself 10 points, since that’s exactly the situation! He’d known it since the fight against Haku, when he had jumped in to save the idiot from death. Of course, he had been confused about his feelings towards Naruto for a week or so afterwards, but once he had talked to Kakashi about it, everything had sorted out in his brain.
Finishing up his tea, he walked to his bathroom to take another shower. He didn’t feel like going to bed while he was still slightly sweaty due to Sakura’s house being so hot with every one in there at once. Quickly, he made his way out from under the spray of cold water; his hot water had yet to replenish itself, and then moved to his room. Before his already chilled skin could turn to ice, he pulled on his warmest and cleanest pair of pajamas he could find and laid down in bed, thinking of all the laundry he’d have to do tomorrow morning so that he would have something to wear on their mission.
To Sasuke, sleep was hard to come by that night. He kept thinking of what a big screw up he had managed to accomplish.
Sasuke, however, was no the only one that was having trouble sleeping. Hyuuga Neji had been walking along the street, having left shortly after Naruto had, wanting to talk to him, and he had seen what had happened in the alley way. Though, being too shocked at seeing Naruto suddenly grabbed and kissed, he didn’t do a thing to help him. When Sasuke disappeared, Neji had every intention of going after the Uchiha to kill him, but suddenly thought better of it. Thinking that taking Naruto away from the Uchiha would be more painful than death he could come up with.
Neji then walked home, thinking about Sasuke’s actions, and wanting nothing more than to make that boy suffer. He walked inside and soaked for a while in the rather large bath tube, with oils mixed in that smelled of several different flowers. Naruto had once told him that he liked the smell of those flowers, and Neji had the sudden thought that if Naruto liked the way he smelled, then Naruto would like him more. However, this has yet to be proven correct since Naruto has yet to notice that he loves him. Such a thick headed boy, though it did make him all the more cuter.
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The Next Day
Naruto woke up, yawning, and decided that today would be a good day for Ramen. So, he quickly went to his kitchen cabinet and pulled out some chicken flavored cup Ramen. While the water boiled, he set to cleaning away some trash on his counter, since he found it very hard to find his clean cups and distinguish them from his dirty cups.Once the kettle let off a whistle, he pulled the flap on top of the ramen cup back and poured the water into the cup. Waiting, though being very impatient and pacing back and forth, Naruto started to think about what had happened the night before. “I wonder who that was…” He muttered as he pulled out a pair of chopsticks and started to eat his breakfast.
After he was finished eating, he quickly went to the bathroom, carrying a pair of clothing with him, and took a shower. After taking rather warm shower, he pulled on his clean clothing.
Unlike the outfit from last night, this one was meant for stealth. Kakashi already said that he was to be along side the road in hiding. It would be very suspicious, after all, if a really important looking person were to walk down the road with several others around her.
Today he had opted for a black suit that covered his whole body, kind of like a cat suit. Around his waist is a loose fitting dark gray belt with several different pockets, all of which were holding different weapons and scrolls. Instead of the normal green vest that a chuunin or jounin would wear, Naruto’s is black, to match his outfit. The cloth of his forehead protector is black this time, and is wrapped around his head. His shoes are black and are so thing that it’s really like wearing socks and not shoes.
Sure, Naruto wanted to wear his normal orange outfit, which he hadn’t gotten rid of quite yet, but that would give away his position, plus Kakashi would force him to change his clothing in order to get a less suspicious outfit. If he didn’t do so, the mission would be kept on hold. No, the outfit was the best that he had, but Naruto decided that plain would be best for the day.
Quickly, he made his way to the bridge, where all of his team members, not counting Tsukiko, had decided to meet. Well, they were going to go pick up the girl after they all arrived at the bridge, and Naruto hoped that for once Kakashi would show up on time, or be early, though those were very unlikely.
So, after locking his door and putting his key in one of the many pouches on the belt around his waist, Naruto took off towards the bridge.
When he arrived there, he realized that Kakashi wasn’t there, but Sasuke and Sakura were both waiting. Sasuke was dressed for stealth as well, though Sakura was dressed in a rather expensive looking white kimono with a black and gold obi. The kimono has about 5 or 6 layers, so Sakura would be hot, each one gradually becoming a darker shade of pink. There are cherry blossoms sewn on her kimono, each a different shade of pink. Sakura’s job was to walk by the Fire Lord’s daughter and talk to her, like a friend would. Under her kimono would be a bunch of weapons for her to use in a fight, along with an outfit that looked a lot like the one that Naruto is currently wearing.
“Sakura-chan, don’t tell me that Kakashi is late again.” Naruto said as he reached his two friends. At Sakura’s nod, Naruto sighed. “He hasn’t gotten any better at showing up on time. We’ll be waiting all day. I knew we should have set the meeting time to at least two hours before we need to show up.”
Sasuke sighed and looked to his right. “No, he’s on time, he’s just a little ways down the road.” At this, both Sakura and Naruto looked in the direction that Sasuke was currently pointing in. There was Kakashi, walking rather slowly, and holding his head.
“Sorry I’m late guys, but my head is killing me…” He said as he walked p to the three. “Kakashi, you didn’t happen to drink any of that punch last night, did you?” Was his reply.
When Kakashi nodded, Naruto started to laugh rather loudly. “Kurenai spiked the punch!” Kakashi just put his hands over his ears. “You know, you should really take some medicine for that.”
When Sakura sighed and walked up to Kakashi, Sasuke watched on in amazement as the girl’s hands started to glow green. In a few seconds, Kakashi’s hangover, along with his headache, were gone. “Thanks, Sakura.” Sakura laughed slightly. “We can’t have a disabled team member, it would slow us down. In any case, we ought to go pick up Tsukiko, so she can pass your test, Kakashi.”
Kakashi mentally groaned at having to give this test over again, and just started off towards her house. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I’ve got the bells.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~
With Tsukiko
The girl in question was currently trying to get ready, having difficulty in finding suitable clothing for the mission. She had decided that she would be standing in the shadows, like so many others, and watching closely.Finally pulling out an outfit, she looked at it. A black long-sleeved shirt that would fit like a glove, a pair of just-as-tight, black pants, a pair of thin black socks, and a pair of black sandal shoes. Yeah, this would work well, if she could find her mask. Deciding that this was better than nothing, she pulled the outfit on and decided to continue to pull out things until she found what she was looking for.
About 10 or so minutes later she stood with a triumphant smile on her face. She had pulled out a mask that looked a lot like Kakashi’s and a black cloth forehead protector. ‘I’m glade that my brother decided to grab all of these things. Now I’m ready to go!’ No, she didn’t have any weapons, and she highly doubted that she would need them. Pulling the mask over her face and then pulling her hair up into a bun, she covered the top of her head with her forehead protector, making sure that none of her hair showed. After all, white hair would show up quite easily on a black background.
Deciding to sit on her bed until her teammates showed up, since it would be near impossible to find them in Konoha, she pulled out a scroll that she had borrowed from Sakura. It had all of her team’s traits, moves, abilities, and so on and so forth. Kakashi’s was nearly blank, since Sakura didn’t know how many jutsus he copied, but still was a good source of information.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~
Back with Kakashi, Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto
They managed to make it to Tsukiko’s house with out many problems, but when they knocked on the door, they didn’t receive an answer.Sakura turned to Kakashi. “Maybe they’re not home. Or maybe they’re not even awake yet, it is still pretty early in the morning.” However, Kakashi just shook his head ‘no’ and knocked again. He could tell that there were two people in that house, one that was at the back of the house, and one that was closer to the front.
The one person closest to the front started to move towards the door and opened it. There stood a tall 25-year-old man with a slightly tanned skin tone. His light brown hair went well with his warm brown eyes that had a slightly surprised look to them. He’s wearing the vest that a jounin or chuunin would wear along with a Konoha forehead protector on top of a normal, every day T-shirt with dark blue jeans and no shoes on.
“Can I do something for you four?” His voice was pleasant to listen to, and Sakura thought that he was quite handsome, though nothing compared to Lee.
Kakashi stepped forward again. “I’m Hatake Kakashi, I’m here to pick up your younger sister, Tsukiko Nanashi.” Kakashi had decided to use his serious voice for this, not wanting the man to think that he was an unsuitable teacher for his younger sister.
The man’s face darkened at the mention of his younger sister, but he moved to the side waving an arm to the empty house. “Come in and make yourselves comfortable in the living room. I’ll go get her.” The open door across the hall showed the living room, so team 7 walked into the hall way and then into the living room while the young man walked towards Tsukiko’s bedroom.
Kakashi sat down on one side of the table; Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke sat behind him. “I wonder why he doesn’t like his sister too much.” Sakura broke the silence that had fallen over the room.
Naruto gave her a questioning glance. “What do you mean? If he didn’t like his sister, then why should he have gone off to get her?” However, before any one could reply to this, the young man walked into the room with the girl in question slightly behind him, her eyes showed uncertainty, but you couldn’t ell if the rest of her body agreed with her eyes wince it was completely covered.
“I suppose you’d like to know a secret about her.” Tsukiko tensed up visibly as her brother pulled out a knife and grabbed her hand. Quickly, he pulled the knife across her palm and she watched as a shallow cut form, barely drawing blood, and then healed back up.
“See? She’s the perfect fighting machine.” The young man looked rather creepy now, a lot like Orochimaru would look if he were still alive. He had walked completely behind her and now held her wrist up in the air so that her arm was almost completely straight. The man had bent slightly over her left shoulder, the side of Tsukiko what wasn’t hoisted up into the air.
“She can’t feel emotions, I don’t know if you’ve seen that yet. She’s incapable of feeling pain, or anything along those lines. She’ll do whatever you tell her to do without question, even kill herself. Watch.” He leaned back, putting the knife in the girl’s hand. “Stab your left arm with this knife, make the injury deep.”
Tsukiko didn’t take her eyes off of the wall that she had been staring at, knowing already that Naruto had tried to get out of his seat; the only thing keeping him from attacking was Sakura and Sasuke grabbing his arms. Kakashi had a rather bored look on his face. Quickly, and without a second thought, Tsukiko stabbed herself, no sign of pain formed on her face.
After pulling out the knife, she used her injured arm to hand it to her older brother. Her blood fell to the ground, but she ignored it. This time it would take a while for the injury to heal. When she looked at her brother, who had yet to grab the knife, she saw that Naruto had managed to break free from his friends, who were also stand up and had stepped in between her and her brother.
“She can’t feel it, you know, so there’s no reason to be angry at me for her stabbing herself. Besides, she couldn’t have resisted the command any ways.” Tsukiko’s older brother said, sweat visible on his forehead due to the three death glares directed his way. While those three were distracted, Tsukiko’s arm healed itself.
“Let’s go, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Tsukiko. We’ve got a survival test to go through.” Kakashi said as he stood up. “By the way.” He turned to the young man. “If I find out that she can feel pain, then you’ll pay. It’s dishonorable for family to hurt each other, and it’s against my beliefs.”
Tsukiko’s brother nodded and watched as all five occupants of the room left.
Outside the house, Sakura rushed up to Tsukiko and looked at her left arm. “Why did you heal so quickly?” Concern laced her voice. It didn’t matter if Tsukiko got on their team or not, the girl was a friend, and any one treated that way at home deserved one person to care about them.
“He told you already, I’m a perfect machine. Even if I didn’t heal that fast, you wouldn’t have needed to heal me. I’m not able to feel pain, not physical pain any ways.” Tsukiko then turned to Kakashi. “Oh, Kakashi-sama, where are we training?”
Kakashi smiled under the cloth mask and looked at Tsukiko. “The training grounds on the outskirts of the village. That’s the best place for what we’re going to do. Did you eat breakfast?” At a shake of the head from the creepily indifferent girl Kakashi continued. “Good, because you’d most likely throw up from what we’re going to do.”
Tsukiko didn’t look convinced. “I highly doubt that I’d throw up if I ate any breakfast. I’m a good fighter, and a valuable asset to any team. I have faith that I’ll be able to pass whatever training you’re going to put me through. There’s nothing that I can’t do.”
“Quite arrogant for some one who can’t disobey orders.” Naruto muttered under his breath from his spot behind Sasuke. Sasuke just smiled, really happy to be back. Tsukiko, who, luckily for Naruto, didn’t hear what he said, continued to walk on, ignoring most of the world and following Kakashi’s lead.
When they reached the training ground, Kakashi held up 3 bells instead of 2 this time. “Ok, Tsukiko, you have to get one of these bells. You may use any weapons, though I see you have none, jutsus, techniques, or fighting styles. Come at me like you’re going to kill me, and you’ve got until lunchtime to get a bell. If you pass, we’ll allow you on this team, if not, then you lose the right to ever become a kunoichi.”
Tsukiko nodded and waited for Kakashi to say start. After what felt like forever, Kakashi looked up at the sky. “You may begin.”
At that simple sentence, she rushed forward and practically disappeared. Kakashi looked around, slightly surprised since she wasn’t the only one. Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto had disappeared as well.
“Oiy! Look behind you!” Tsukiko shouted to Kakashi as she rushed at him with her fist drawn back. Kakashi grabbed her fist, it had almost hit him in the face, and she used her momentum to carry her to her right. When she reached his side, she pulled forward, bending low over the ground, an attempt to flip Kakashi. Much to her dismay, Kakashi had seen this coming and had landed on his feet instead of his back.
Once Kakashi landed, Tsukiko rushed forward in an attempt to set him off balance. Lucky for her, this worked, but when Kakashi hit the ground, a cloud of smoke formed and a log appeared. Turning around quickly, she caught the fist that had almost connected with her head.
Thinking quickly, she pushed Kakashi into a tree and held him there. “Say, Kakashi, I’m going to borrow one of your hands.” Then she started to form seals using Kakashi’s right hand and her left hand. A tap on her shoulder stopped her and she turned around to receive a punch to the face.
“I’m sure that the tree would have loved that water jutsu that you were about to use, however I’m not too sure about my clone.” A bored looking Kakashi stated from where he was standing while a frustrated looking Tsukiko stood up from her spot on the ground.
“You’re good, but not good enough.” Smirking, she brought her hands up in the seal of the tiger. Kakashi, thinking that she was going to start a fire jutsu, started to run towards her, trying to stop her before she could finish the seals. However, much to Kakashi’s surprise, a rain of weapons came down on his head, all missing him, but that wasn’t the reason why she did this.
Tsukiko rushed forward and made a desperate lung for the bells, though to her horror she found that Kakashi was using Kawarimi and Henge no jutsu together again. Letting a stream of curses under her breath, she stood still, trying to sense his chakra signals. To her annoyance, that didn’t work.
Kakashi, who was watching amused from a tree, wondered where Tsukiko got the weapons. She didn’t have any on her when they picked her up, and his students had disappeared as well. Though his thoughts were broken when the tree caught fire. Jumping into the clearing, he saw Tsukiko look his way and she disappeared again, though not in a puff of smoke as she would have had she used the teleporting jutsu, she just vanished.
The girl showed up behind him and bent straight down while bringing her right heel up, hitting Kakashi in the back of his head, causing her foot to go straight through it. ‘A normal Buunshin no jutsu, this bites. He’s toying with me!’ She thought angrily, though keeping calm, she looked up in time to dodge a weapon.
Surprise etched itself across Kakashi’s face at the enormous amount of chakra that the girl was now giving off. She formed the seal of the rat and a fireball came his way. Quickly getting out of the fireball’s way, he didn’t notice the elbow that managed to find his stomach. Having not getting time to prepare himself, Kakashi flew backwards.
“I hope that you’re not getting tired, Kakashi.” Tsukiko was using a taunting voice. When she made the seal of the horse, a few clones appeared out of nowhere, looking just like her. Then it hit Kakashi. It may look like Tsukiko was fighting alone, but in that short time; she had managed to set up a system of seals that would correspond to different jutsus and techniques.
To Kakashi’s amusement, Tsukiko took up Sasuke’s favorite stance. “Now I’m going to get serious.” She said in a rather annoyed voice as she rushed at Kakashi.
Kakashi pulled up his forehead protector. If he wanted to test this girl to her fullest, he would have to use the sharingan. He barely had time to register anything before Tsukiko made the sign of the rat and a large water dragon appeared out of nowhere.
Kakashi barely managed to do the same jutsu, having copied it before, when a dragon of ice appeared and froze all the water, and almost catching him.
Then he made his mistake, not paying attention to the girl and looking more for the next jutsu. When Tsukiko appeared behind him and landed a blow to the back of his head, Kakashi was more than surprised. He was even more surprised when the girl didn’t give him the chance to counter or block, but followed through by hitting him several times in the gut. Not getting enough time to form the seals for Kawarimi No Jutsu, he took every blow the girl landed. Like Lee, she must have focused mainly on taijutsu all her life, since she was rather strong.
He quickly found his back to a tree, which snapped in half when he managed to duck his head and kick the girl after her fist connected with the tree. Kakashi didn’t give the girl enough time to react, or even hit the ground, before he slammed his fist into her stomach. Her eyes snapped open and she grabbed his elbow before he could bring his arm away, effectively pulling him to the round with her.
Much to Kakashi’s dismay, she formed some strange seal that wasn’t any known to the ninja, probably just a random hand gesture that she created. He was pretty surprised when nothing happened. When he looked down to where Tsukiko was, all he saw was a pile of dirt. ‘That’s odd, what happened.’
While Kakashi failed to realize that he was caught in a genjutsu, Tsukiko snuck up to him and grabbed one of the bells. Shortly after, Kakashi blinked, having sent chakra through his body, since he had started to watch Obito talk to a younger version of himself, and noticing that it was a genjutsu.
As soon as Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke saw Tsukiko hold up the bell, a look of triumph on her face, they reappeared by her side. “This was too easy, I’ve already been through this type of training before, the exact same training.” Tsukiko said in her rather creepy monotone voice.
“So, this bell belongs to the group. If we had just gotten out of the academy, I’d say that we pass and go on to the genin level together with this bell alone, but that’s not the case. Instead, I’ll say that I pass by saying that we are a team, and as a team we work together, as a unit. No one gets left behind.” The exact same thing her teacher had told them when she first went through this exam. They had used the exact same strategy the second time around that they had used here. There was nothing different from that time to this time.
Kakashi pulled his forehead protector down over his Sharingan eye and sighed. “You’ve gotten me beat, of course, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura are all a few levels above you, but that’ll change rather quickly. You’ll be on their level with training. Welcome to the team, Tsukiko Nanashi.” He had smiled and then turned towards the meeting place at the gates out of Konoha. “Well, we’d best be on our way now.”
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Usuratonkachi=Dumb ass, one of Sasuke’s many names for Naruto.
I’m sorry for the differences in how I type and write and such. The quality of my work depends on how my day went, and since I’m not typing this all in one sitting, *There’s no way in hell that I could pull that off* my writing will go from sloppy to passable to great in one chapter, some times any ways. For those of you who read further into the story, this takes place almost right after Naruto comes back from his near three year long training. Before Gaara was kidnapped. Yes, I did read further, but I had started to type stuff that didn’t bode well with what happened afterwards, so yeah….
Well, I guess I gave you Sasuke/Naruto fans out there something to cheer about, Sasuke got Naruto’s second kiss, and it was a real kiss, not a mistake like the first time. Those that are Neji/Naruto fans, you can hate me until the next chapter, you might get something that you like ^.~.
Until next time, see ya!