Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ The Curative Career of Kaori the Ninja Nurse ❯ Challenges ( Chapter 17 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Author's Notes: Beginning quote (morning mantra) is from comedian Al Franken as Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live (from a long time ago).

-…-…-…-

Challenges

`I'm good enough. I'm smart enough. And dog-gone it - people like me!' Gai repeated his morning mantra over and over to himself in the mirror. It was an old habit that originated from the time he was a genin and picked up a self-help book. The book “Why I'm Better Than I Think I Am” had given him confidence and changed his life.

He repeated his mantra for longer than usual as he had barely recovered from yesterday's emotional roller coaster - first elation that Lee would be able to stay a ninja, then desolation when his destined one claimed she was in love with his eternal rival. Why did fate always conspire against him? First Rin and now Kaori (not to mention dozens of others).

Kakashi had only just recovered from his coma - how could Kaori possibly be in love with him? No doubt Kakashi had cast some sort of genjutsu. That would explain it. Why else would a woman prefer someone as lazy and perverted as that to someone as vibrant and chivalrous as himself?

Gai then realized that it was a test, a test to prove himself worthy of the fair Kaori, which meant he had to challenge Kakashi to a duel of honor, or rather several duels, until Gai won the greater majority.

-...-...-...-

Kakashi was just minding his own business as usual, heading home after a solo mission resolving a kidnapping case (where he used his sharingan to hypnotize all the witnesses), when all of a sudden he heard Gai's irate voice.

“You! You! Hatake Kakashi! Eternal rival. Sharingan shammer. Revolutionary man. Genjutsu jester. Thorn in my sandal. You have just made the biggest mistake of your life!”

“Huh?” was all Kakashi had to say to the odd man in green.

“Don't even try to deny it! I know you purposely did it just to have your revenge!”

“Revenge?”

“For my record of 53 wins versus your 52. You thought you could surpass me by resorting to something so underhanded. Never! I'll never let you!”

“Sigh, look, I'm kind of tired right now. Can't this wait till tomorrow?” Actually, Kakashi expected to be away again tomorrow.

“No! It's unforgivable! This must be resolved right here, right now! Name your challenge!” Gai pointed furiously at his rival.

“Sigh, fine, let's get this over with. Hmm…thumb war?” Kakashi yawned disinterestedly.

“No. Did that.”

“Odd or even?”

“No. Did that.”

“Rock, paper, scissors?”

“No! Did that!”

“You said name the challenge.”

“A new challenge!” Gai astutely did not want the same challenge as one he had lost in the past.

“Sigh, let's see…” After having endured over a hundred challenges, most of them different, Kakashi had to think really, really hard to come up with a new one, especially one that would require minimal effort on his part. Of course Kakashi had no clue what Gai was talking about, that he had stolen Kaori away, but that was nothing new. He always played along with Gai's insane rants.

“Umm…hopscotch?” Kakashi finally suggested.

“Something as simple as that?” said Gai with furrowed super-brows.

“It's a test of balance, aim and accuracy,” Kakashi patiently explained.

“I see…yes! Hopscotch! I was an expert in my younger days. There's no way I'll lose to you!”

“Fine, you draw the boxes,” Kakashi said lazily as he leaned on a tree to watch. `I thought only girls played hopscotch,' he added to himself.

“Chalk…I need chalk,” Gai fumbled in his vest pockets but came up empty. Afraid that his rival would just walk away, he bit his right index finger with his perfectly straight sharp teeth and drew the boxes with his own blood.

They used a shuriken as the game piece to throw onto the boxes. No chakra was allowed to jump and hop in or over the boxes, not that two grown men needed to. It was a ridiculously easy and silly game, but Gai played it seriously all in the name of love. Kakashi had planned to throw the game once they got toward the end, hoping to get some peace and quiet. He couldn't care less about winning.

But then, when Gai reached for the shuriken in the number nine box, something happened. He was balanced on his right leg on the number eight box and was about to grab the shuriken when a large dragonfly flew at him. He used his hands to shoo it away, but it persisted so he tried to catch it. It must have been a special summoned insect as it somehow avoided Gai's clutch. He then lost his balance slightly and touched the ground with his still bloody right hand. He ended up accidentally summoning a tortoise that took up the entire box. His hand slipped and touched the box border. He lost instantly.

“Well, that's it for today,” Kakashi remarked coolly and continued on his way home.

“No! How could this have happened?” Gai looked at the poor tortoise accusingly.

“Hey, you tell me. You must have made the seals and sacrificed the blood. If you don't need me, I've got better things to do.” The tortoise yawned, shrunk back into his shell and disappeared with a puff of smoke.

“Seals?” Gai thought hard. He finally realized that in trying to get rid of the dragonfly, he must have performed the summoning seals.

“AAARRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!”

Somewhere in Otafuku Village…

-…-…-…-

Before Kaori blurted out the words, she had refused to admit to herself that she was really in love with Kakashi. She hadn't meant to break up with Gai in quite that way (not that there was ever a relationship to break up), so she felt terribly guilty (though very relieved) afterwards. She decided she needed some distance from both men. She realized that she was becoming too much like Gai by practically stalking Kakashi, so she made no other moves. After all, the shuriken was now in his court and it was his turn to return the serve.

Nearly two weeks passed without any word from, or any sign of, her former prince, or her former stalker. The lack of attention left her disgruntled and depressed. Kaori told herself over and over it was because Kakashi was too busy due to the backlog in missions and she wasn't going to humiliate herself further by running after him.

But now Kaori was getting desperate. Dinner with her family was just a couple of days away and Kakashi had not contacted her at all. How was she going to face them? She could lie and say they broke up, but then they'd know there was no one in the first place. And there was no way she'd give her bitchy sister-in-law the satisfaction.

Otoha noticed her superior spacing out, which could only mean one thing: she was thinking of a guy, and the guy had to be Kakashi. She decided to cook up a juicy rumor.

“Hey, guess what I heard. Rumor has it that the Ichiraku ramen waitress saw Kakashi-sensei's face. The poor girl immediately fell in love with him and that's why the service and ramen quality has declined. I hear they're going out now.” The first part of the statement was true, but the latter, made-up part, nearly sent Kaori spinning.

Kaori was livid. How could an uneducated nobody like that attract Kakashi? The girl was pretty enough, had a decent figure, but she had to smell like fermented bean curd! And wasn't she a bit too young and immature for him? What could they possibly have in common? Kaori wanted to find out the details, but she was afraid to question Otoha. After all, she was not a lovesick desperate teenager. Instead, Kaori pretended she was not interested at all.

But Otoha could tell from Kaori's red face and even redder ears that she was very upset. That delighted the buxom brunette to no end, so she just had to say, “Ah, too bad about Kakashi. I was going to jump him myself, but I've been too preoccupied with your ex-boyfriend.”

Kaori shrugged and said coldly, “I don't mind you having my leftovers.”

“I think you made a mistake there. Houshou's really something. Not as intriguing as Kakashi, of course, so when I'm done with him, maybe Kakashi will be done with the ramen girl. Sorry, Kaori, you'll have to wait your turn.” Otoha punctuated that with hysterical evil laughter.

Kaori bit her lip part in anger at Otoha's teasing and part in sorrow at Kakashi's betrayal. After all, it was a betrayal. She was the one who watched over him for months. She was the one who embarrassed herself by reading those smut books. She sacrificed the book jackets of her favorite books to hide the Icha Icha covers. What did that ramen girl do for him? Stuff him with over priced starches? It just wasn't fair. Why didn't Kakashi ask her out instead of the ramen girl? She was not going to let either of them get away with it. The lovelorn nurse tried hard to keep from crying and it was only because of her rival's unwanted presence that she succeeded. She would not give Otoha the satisfaction.

Then Kaori maturely reminded herself that Kakashi was never hers to begin with, so she really couldn't fault either him or the ramen girl. Still, someone had to pay for her bad mood, so she turned to Otoha and said, “Hope you didn't have any plans for the weekend. We're going to need you to work overtime. It's time for a full inventory since the annual audit is coming up.”

“Audit? That's not for another month!”

“We had some problems with missing narcotics last year, so now that I'm in charge of supplies, I think we should get an early start.”

Otoha gave her superior a murderous look and swore revenge beneath her breath.

-…-…-…-

Kakashi had had a strange couple of weeks since his awakening. First there was that cute little nurse who kept dropping by. Then there was Gai's absurd constant challenges.

His life was complicated enough right now with the many missions and his concern over not being there for his genin team. He really did not need any more complications like having a clingy woman around. To his relief, and regret, the nurse stopped stalking him. He hadn't seen her since inauguration day. Though he missed the free food, he told himself it was for the best.

But for some reason, Gai continued to challenge him every time they crossed paths. Luckily, Kakashi's missions kept him busy and often away from Konoha. But it was getting to be too much - Gai began to call him out in the middle of the night with new ideas for challenges. He had tolerated Gai's challenges in the past as it helped him set benchmarks for his skills every quarter or so, but now it was just ridiculously annoying. Kakashi had tried to let Gai win as often as possibly, but somehow the record stayed fairly even. That apparently was no longer good enough for Gai, who now insisted that he must have a two-thirds majority of victories.

It took Kakashi a while to figure out the reason for the sudden increase in challenges, since much of Gai's normal way of speaking was nearly indecipherable: “You subverted my destiny… You interfered with fate's hand… You've provoked providence…”

Kakashi was finally able to glean that it had to do with a woman. Nothing new, he was used to men cursing him out for supposedly stealing their women when he had done nothing to encourage them at all.

Now at three in the morning, just hours after his return from another mission, Kakashi heard a voice right outside his third-floor window. “You destiny defiler! You genjutsu-ed your way into her heart. A flower of such pulchritude cannot be plucked by one as sullied as you…”

Finally, Kakashi asked his rival, “Look, you're already ahead 69 to 65 now. Can't we go back to quarterly challenges? Don't you think 30 challenges in two weeks is a bit much?”

“I must prove that I am the better man!” Gai said as he hung upside down outside of Kakashi's window.

“If you want I'll sign an affidavit.”

“No! It must be proved legitimately or the fair Kaori will not be convinced.”

“Kaori?”

“The nurse! Can't you remember anyone's name?”

“Oh. I don't know what's going on between you two, but I don't have anything to do with her. In fact I haven't seen her in weeks.”

“How despicable! She gave you her heart and you stomped all over it!”

“It's really none of your business, but I'm not involved with anyone right now…”

“Hah! On to your next conquest? You are lower than slug slime! Name your challenge…”

-…-…-…-…-

'All men are ungrateful dogs!' Kaori angrily muttered to herself. 'I thought he was different, but he's just like the others - chasing whatever tail wags before him! How could he? Bastard! But this came from Otoha. Maybe it's not true. Maybe she's just out to get me. Maybe I should ask him directly...'

During her walk home, Kaori's thoughts swung back and forth from endowing Kakashi with the vilest character to canonizing him as a saint. Just when Kaori was about to either give up on Kakashi, or start stalking him again, he appeared by her door. She immediately wondered how he knew where she lived and how he suddenly appeared. Kakashi, with his sharingan, had actually deduced her movements as she walked home. He ran ahead of her and waited for an opportune movement to magically appear next to her to look extra cool.

“Let me get that for you,” he said gallantly as he concentrated his chakra to his hand and somehow opened the locked door as she fumbled for her keys.

His presence took her by complete surprise so all Kaori could do was stammer, “Th…thank you.” But then she recovered and quickly invited him in. 'He's finally come to see me! I knew those ramen girl rumors were lies! Otoha, that bitch!'

But instead of entering, Kakashi got directly to the point. “I need you to do me a favor, please.” He said it nonchalantly but there was a hint of urgency in the “please.”

“If I can,” Kaori said cautiously. Even though it was Kakashi, she was instinctively wary of doing favors. But her heart cried out, `Anything! Anything at all! Whom do I have to kill? Ha, ha, you're really here to ask me out. Cute that you'd consider it a favor.'

“You have to get Gai to stop challenging me. I don't know what's going on between the two of you, but..."

"There's nothing going on between us! He's crazy!" Kaori protested, fearful that Kakashi had the wrong idea.

"Wait, let me explain," Kakashi continued, "We used to have these challenges a few times a year. No big deal. It makes him happy and keeps him off my back the rest of the time. But now, he challenges me every time he sees me and recently he's been tracking me down during missions.”

`Kill Gai? Is that what you want me to do? No problem! No, wait, yes problem…This is not a date request?' Kaori said nothing for a minute, trying to understand exactly what was going on. “I'm sorry, I have no control over Gai sensei,” she finally replied, a bit coolly, miffed that Kakashi was not there to ask her out.

“Sigh, as I understand it, for some reason, he thinks we're involved. If you'd just set him straight,” Kakashi said, oblivious of the crushed look on Kaori's face.

“Sorry, there's nothing I can do,” Kaori said coldly, thinking how it was all his fault she would have to suffer humiliation from her family.

“If you can think of anything...” he persisted, leaning in closer to her.

Kaori then had a flash of brilliance. “Hmm...okay, I'll try, but in return you have to go out on three dates with me.”

“Three dates? How about one?” He did not seem to be excited by the prospect. `And who's paying?' he wondered.

Kaori frowned. It seemed he was not interested in going out with her at all. “Three dates, all my choice, you pay, or else say hello to your new roommate Gai!”

'So Kakashi expects me to help him out while he's making time with the ramen girl! I'm not letting any guy use me or push me around. Not even Kakashi!' Kaori stubbornly resolved.

What could poor Kakashi say to that? The thought of prospective roommate Gai would have made him walk through the esophagus of a gigantic rock frog from the Myouboku Mountains. “Right, three dates,” he agreed with a sigh.

-…-…-…-

Author's Notes: I wrote a thumbs war challenge (see “Waiting and Wishing”) and an odd vs even challenge (see “Kakashi's Stolen Sharingan”) already, so I'm just writing the one Hopscotch challenge for this story.