Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Photograph ❯ Summons ( Chapter 2 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Theme #2: news, letter

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“What's wrong now?”

“Tsunade-san, I haven't even made it all the way into the room!” Shizune gave her boss a huge, and obviously fake, smile as she hesitated in the doorway. “What makes you think something's wrong?”

“You're carrying a bottle of sake and a paper. What's in there?” Tsunade leaned back into her chair, watching her assistant squirm.

“I'll just leave these here for you, Tsunade-san.” With speed that would make Kakashi envious, Shizune set the sake and newspaper on the Hokage's desk and made herself scarce.

`She's really spooked.' Tsunade reached across the desk and pulled the paper close. The headline was pretty standard. All of the businesses that had been damaged in the last shinobi battle had reopened, and they were holding a large sale. `I need to stop by the weapons shop. They're having a clearance on kunai. And it looks like the furniture place is having another sale on dinged furniture. I didn't realize the fight had gotten all the way to them.' Thumbing through, she found a picture of the genin that had been promoted to chunin. They were politely standing together with proud smiles. Tsunade growled and whipped to the next page. `Sure, the new chunin can do it, but not my jounin.'

There was an article about construction at the ninja academy, a restaurant review of a barbeque place, and an ad for weapon sharpening services. `What the hell had Shizune so worked up?' Tsunade continued to flip through, absent mindedly opening the bottle of sake. She took a slow sip, savoring that first drink of the day, before choking and spitting the alcohol across her desk. “What the hell?!”

Right there, on page 12, across from the editorial on increasing security at the baths, was a copy of the picture from the Chunin Exam. The one that her jounin would not hold still for. The one with the rather scandalous scene of Rock Lee making out with the Kazekage front and center. Just to make the situation more perilous, the article was in the social section of the paper and featured the headline, “Strengthening Relations Between the Villages?”

`Tell me this isn't happening. I was supposed to have the only copy of that picture! The rest of the jounin were all too distracted to even notice them. They just saw Lee knock Gaara over.' Tsunade skimmed through the column. If you believed the reporter, Lee and Gaara had been seeing each other in secret since the Chunnin Exam where Lee had almost died. Evidently, their passion just could not be contained any longer.

“Shizune!”

Considering how quickly her assistant blew into the office, she must have been waiting just outside of the door. “Yes, Tsunade-san?”

“Rock Lee. Here. Now.”

“Right away, Tsunade-san!” Shizune turned and bolted back out the door.

Tsunade poured herself another drink and stared at the picture. Sure, no one noticed that their future Hokage was unconscious, or that Kiba was hanging upside down from the tree. But, to be fair, it was pretty distracting to see the two young men making out right in the middle of the picture. She wasn't blind, she could see that both had grown up to be shining examples of shinobi physique, and Gaara had that mysterious, aloof, dangerous bad boy act down to an art. And Lee was wearing all of that bright green. Overall, pretty hard to ignore.

“Hokage-sama?” Rock Lee inched into the room, looking quite subdued.

`Shizune must have warned him.' Tsunade held the paper up, showing the photo. “Do you want to explain what this is?”

“That is a newspaper, Hokage-sama.”

If it had been anyone else, Tsunade would have chucked them through a wall. Instead, she just sighed and rephrased the question. “I meant the picture.”

Lee stepped closer and took a look, immediately blushing crimson. “Uh, that looks like it is the picture from the Chunin Exam.”

“Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Now, the real question is, why the hell are you kissing the Kazekage?!”

Lee's eyes went impossibly wide, his hands up in a desperate gesture of surrender. “It was an accident! Honest, Hokage-sama! I was looking behind me, and I was knocked sideways. I know I should not have been knocked over that easily, I know. I ran 200 laps around Konoha backwards for my lapse. The Kazekage was very polite about the whole thing. I only have sand burns, no broken bones. I am sorry, because I never considered what it did to your picture.”

Tsunade just stared. “So, you didn't kiss Gaara.”

“Not on purpose. We did run into each other, and I think we bumped lips, but I did not kiss the Kazekage.”

“But you bumped lips.” The Hokage downed the rest of her drink in one gulp. “Okay. I'll buy that. But no one else will. The entire village is going to think that you have some sort of a relationship with Gaara.”

“Oh.” Lee looked a bit befuddled.

“I'll do what I can, but it's going to get interesting. Are you seeing anyone right now?”

Lee turned a blazing shade of scarlet, looking rather like he'd just opened a couple of forbidden gates. “Not just now, Hokage-sama.”

Tsunade narrowed her eyes. “Are you gay?”

“Hokage-sama!”

“What? It's going to be easier for you if you are. You might even get some new offers from this.” The young man in question looked like he was going to collapse at any second, so Tsunade decided to let it go. “Fine, fine, I can tell that you really don't want to talk about this with me. Go talk to Gai if things get out of hand. Not sure which way he swings, to be honest, but I'm sure he'll have advice on how to handle this. After all, he has advice on everything else. I'll see what I can do to shut this mess down from here.”

“Thank you, Hokage-sama.”

“Tsunade-san, I have a message from Suna.” Shizune hustled into the room, not even bothering to knock.

“Shizune, I'm a bit busy right now. Just put it on the pile.” Tsunade gestured towards the carefully balanced tower of missives that she was supposed to read. At some point or another.

“You don't understand. This is from the Kazekage himself.”

The Hokage had the urge to bang her head on her desk. `All I wanted was a simple picture.' She held out her hand instead, taking the message. She broke the seal and unrolled the scroll, scanning over the words quickly. Her eyes shot back up to Lee. “Looks like you have a trip, Lee.”

“Huh?”

“Gaara just sent a request for you to be sent to Suna indefinitely.”

Lee swallowed visibly. “Did he mention why?”

“No, but considering what I have on my desk, I've got a few guesses.”

The jounin blanched at her words. “Such as?”

“I don't think he's going to just kill you or anything. He's too worried about the relationship between the villages. He's probably going to knock you around a bit, make you tell everyone in Suna that you're not dating, something like that. I think I'm going to send you. You aren't going to want to be around here once everyone reads their papers. This is going to be the biggest scandal since Jirayia was caught peeping on Kakashi.”

Shizune raised her hand. “Don't you think it would be a bad idea to send Lee running off to the Kazekage when everyone thinks they're dating?”

Tsunade shrugged. “They're going to think that either way. Besides, we don't want to tick Suna off anymore then we already have. Lee will bring back anything he learns about what's going on in the village. Right, Lee?”

“Of course, Hokage-sama!” Lee nodded vigorously.

“I'll make it a classified mission, so no one will be sure where he went.” Tsunade tossed the sake soaked paper into the trash, grimacing at the alcohol that seemed to be on everything now. “Go pack before the frenzy starts. I expect you to leave for Suna today.”

“Yosh!” The green clad jounin bolted out the door.

“So.” Shizune sat down across from her boss, tapping her finger on the chair. “Do you think this is going to work? Do you think this is actually going to help Lee and Gaara deal with this mess?”

“No idea. This paper goes to everyone. Things are going to get a bit interesting for the both of them if word has leaked to Suna.” Tsunade took a long sip, staring off into space. “I sure hope that boy is gay. If he's not, he's going to have a really hard time dating for awhile.”