Here Come the Ninja!
A/N: Because everyone in Konoha is just a little bit crazy.
If you live in Konoha long enough, you tend to get used to it.
Hospital
Nurse Megumi walked with Dr. Benito. The latter was speaking softly, his voice clear and precise.
"Now, the patient in Room 203 is a Shinobi. The Copy Ninja, to be exact. I'm sure you've heard of him."
"Yes sir. I have. He's in here mostly because of Chakra Exhaustion."
"That's correct. However this time, it seems he's torn a muscle in his right leg and there's been a lot of blood loss because of stab wounds to the abdomen. I want you to give him a physical because we need to monitor how the wounds are healing. And if possible, I'd like to move him from two doses of the medicine to three, but that all depends on how strong his body is right now. I don't want him having a reaction. As you know, the drug we've given him is very sensitive to Chakra."
"You want me to gauge his Chakra levels, right?"
"Yes. I'm going in for a surgery now but I want the information on my desk by the time I come back."
Megumi nodded. "Right away, sir."
She walked briskly onwards, knocking on the door of Room 203. "Hatake-san? May I enter?"
Silence. Perhaps he was sleeping. With the kind of beating his body had received, she wouldn't have been surprised if he was out cold for another day. She opened the door and peered inside.
Megumi found the bed empty and the window open.
She balled her fists in irritation, turned heel and stalked off.
"I fucking hate Shinobi!"
Lunchtime
Chef Shouta didn't like to be summoned. He wasn't a very egoistical man. He didn't have anything to be big-headed about. Just a simple fellow earning a simple living and putting food on his family's table and sending his children to school. It was enough for him. He didn't need any spotlights, and he certainly didn't need to be called upon with such unhappiness by his most regular customers.
"Yes, how can I help you, Asuma-san?"
Asuma Sarutobi was a nice enough man, Shouta thought. He was down-to-earth, a respected ninja and he tipped generously. Not to mention that he was the Third's son and that made it all the more important to be in his good books. Or so Shouta firmly believed, anyway.
Presently, Asuma gave him an apologetic look. "Ah, my student had something to say, actually."
He didn't have to specify which student. Shouta knew who he was talking about well enough. Without really caring much, he turned his attention to the fat one. "Choji-kun? Is everything alright?" He peppered this question further with a polite, "Did you enjoy your meal?"
Choji looked sadly at Shouta. "I enjoyed it very much. It was perfect, as always."
Every chef loved compliments, and Shouta beamed. "That's always a nice thing to hear. Arigatou, Choji-kun." So why did the kid look so upset, then?
"But," Choji began. Shouta found himself raising an eyebrow.
"But?"
"A waiter told me that I couldn't have any more beefsteak…" and the child looked like he was going to cry. "Apparently, you've run out?"
Shouta suppressed a sheepish chuckle as he said, "Ah, well, um, you see, Choji-kun, you ate all of it. The entire day's stock."
Choji's friend, the thin, bored looking student, made a disgruntled noise from the back of his throat. The blonde girl, Ino, giggled a little. Asuma looked like he wanted to say something but at the same time, didn't want to get into trouble.
Choji himself, though, looked shocked. Then finally, he responded with a simple, "Oh."
"Hehehe…I'm really sorry, Choji-kun. We'll get more steak for you tomorrow."
"Yeah, do that." The boy sounded dazed, like he'd been told something unbelievable. "Wait, Shouta-san?"
"Yes, Choji-kun?"
"What else do you have in the kitchen?"
Shouta's eyes widened a little. "I, er…a lot of things, I suppose. I haven't committed the inventory to my memory."
Choji nodded, thinking hard. Finally, after a minute's silence, he declared, "I'll take all of it."
"WHAT?"Asuma cried, choking on a sip of water.
"Oh boy…" the thin, bored kid muttered.
Ino just stared at her overweight teammate, stunned.
Chef Shouta, meanwhile, blinked. "All of it?"
"All of it," Choji confirmed. "I'm very hungry."
Later that day, shortly after Asuma nearly wept at the sight of the massive hole in his wallet and after Choji was quickly carted off to the hospital in a stretcher thanks to severe indigestion, Shouta sat counting his money.
Another customer entered, asking for a simple chicken soup.
"We're all out," Shouta replied without even looking up from his monetary calculations.
"But it's just chicken soup."
"I'm really sorry, sir. A bunch of Shinobi came through and…"
"Oh. Say no more," the customer replied in exasperation. "I'll come back tomorrow."
Dates
Teuchi looked on in amusement as his favourite blonde sat staring dreamy-eyed at his teammate. Sakura wasn't really paying attention, looking this way. They were waiting for someone, apparently. Naruto didn't seem to care one way or another. He seemed happy enough just to be in the girl's company.
Young love. How sweet. He remembered when he was their age…Sigh. Her name had been Juri and he'd been so infatuated with her. But of course, he'd been very shy back then and Juri had been a Queen Bee. She didn't have time for boys like him. He figured that the same was true of Naruto and Sakura. Well, it used to be that way, anyway. He'd always seen Sakura with a large group of girlfriends with Naruto always near-by, spying on her with pink cheeks.
He'd always felt like offering advice. After all, who would provide him with information on attracting women? The boy didn't have any parents or anyone to look after him. Teuchi had always made it a personal mission from day one to take care of Naruto as well as he could. He never did tell him how to flatter the fairer sex, though. He sometimes felt that it wasn't his place. After all, he was just an old ramen-seller. Right?
Anyway, it didn't seem to matter now. Naruto had become well-known enough. It heartened him to see how much the child had grown from a loudmouth troublemaker to a true Shinobi.
"That's so strange," Sakura muttered. "Where is Sai? It's not like him to be late."
"Maybe Kakashi-sensei is a bad influence on him?" Naruto said.
"Yeah but Kakashi-sensei is in hospital right now."
Pause. Silence. Crickets chirping.
Finally.
"Sakura-chan?"
"Hmm?" the girl said, still looking around for their grey-skinned artist friend.
"So, if it's just me and you…" Naruto began, his tone getting flirter and flirtier with every syllable. "Is this like a date?"
Sakura spun around, whacked him so hard that he flew right into Teuchi's kitchen, and yelled, "BAKA!"
Then, she proceeded to jump off the stool and stomp away.
Teuchi sighed at the state of his impeccable kitchen. Boiled noodles everywhere, sauce splattered on the walls, pots and pans littering the floor, and in the middle of it, a very deflated Naruto lying spread eagle, looking horribly bruised. Choosing to focus on the boy first, the ramen-seller bent down to his level and asked, "Is it just me, or does Shinobi romance have a lot of S and M involved?"
Explosions
Explosions were quite commonplace in Konoha, so when there was a loud BOOM and a massive cloud of smoke, everyone simply looked up, analysed the situation and went back to what they were doing.
Sai, on the other hand, wanted to kill himself. How he'd found himself into this situation was beyond him. All he could remember was a rush of green and orange and a lot of shouting about YOUTH in that tone with the capitals, bold, italic and everything.
"You're going to have to try harder than that, Lee," Konoha's Green Beast taunted. "If you really hope to defeat Sai and his ink drawings. He was in Root, you know?"
"YES GAI SENSEI!" cried the green terror's mini-me. And the tears. For god's sake, why always those damn emotional tears? Sai just couldn't understand it.
"Actually, Gai-sensei, I had an appointment with my teammates regarding—"
"AAAAHH!" Rock Lee shouted, coming at Sai with some horrid Taijutsu technique. Sai quickly had to side-step and create an ink lion to take the brunt of the trauma. Said lion was promptly destroyed and the ground was painted black with the results.
Meanwhile, the hustle and bustle of people who actually had lives went on, ignoring the spectacle before them. They were far too used to Shinobi eccentricities to even give a shit any more. It was just unanimously accepted that all ninja were crazy and there was nothing anyone would ever be able to do about it.
Which was fair enough, Sai thought.
Unfortunately, he spent too much time thinking because before he knew it, Rock Lee had captured him in a Primary Lotus.
The resulting explosion was so loud that it sent ripples all over the village and there was an enormous splash of black ink that rained down everywhere.
The civilians simply opened umbrellas and continued with their day.
Fiction
Wataru saw all sorts of people in his store. There was the Secretive Pervert, who merely glanced through his wares like he was hiding from the world. Then the Shy Pervert, who would blush each time he went to pay for his books. Or the Enthusiastic Pervert, who looked through everything with great interest and then purchased several volumes at once. Also, the Creepy Pervert who inevitably ended up in jail.
But Sharingan no Kakashi was the Cool Pervert. The kind of person who sauntered in, picked up the latest Icha Icha, flipped through it whilst humming, like he was reading a newspaper, and paid for it while smiling and asking how Wataru's day was going. He would then walk out of the store with his nose in the book and not care the slightest what the world thought of him.
The problem was that at this very moment, the Copy Ninja didn't look even the slightest bit 'cool'.
He lied slumped unconscious on the floor, Icha Icha fallen out of his gloved hand, as he bled all over Wataru's marble tiles. Some sort of unhealed wound had reopened, apparently.
Wataru sighed, adjusted his round spectacles and bent to pick up the unpaid-for book. He placed it carefully back on one of the shelves and called his assistant.
A scrawny boy of eighteen came running to the front of the store.
"Let the hospital know that Hatake-san's passed out here again, would you?"
"Yes, Wataru-sama!"
"Thank you."
And after the assistant had left, Wataru walked past the bleeding mess that was his most regular customer and went back to waiting by the counter. This wasn't the first time that Kakashi had escaped from hospital before he was supposed to. And it definitely wasn't the first time Wataru had found him lying amongst stacks of porn whilst bleeding profusely.
Medical ninja arrived and carted Kakashi away. Wataru watched them go with mild amusement before picking up the Icha Icha Kakashi had been looking at and flipping through it.
Heh. Maybe Wataru would give it to him as a get-well-soon present.
He placed the book under the counter, went to the bathroom and found a bucket and a mop. With that, he leisurely cleaned the blood off the floor.
Correction. Even if you lived in Konoha all your life, you'd never really get used to it.
A/N: I wrote this simply because Konoha Shinobi are never up to any good and I feel really bad for its civilians xD