"Hm, good job Sakura." Tsunade said, leaning casually back in her chair. Sakura just bowed, and then turned to leave. The rosette reached the door, then turned and opened her mouth.
"Where's-"
"Naruto? He's in the forest somewhere." Tsunade said boredly, waving her hand sleepily as if the whole forest that surrounded Konoha and covered a good part of the Fire Nation was about the size of a small apartment.
Sakura blinked.
"Tsunade-sama, could you kind of, ya' know, clarify?"
This time, Tsunade blinked.
"Uh, okay..." Tsunade said, as if it was obvious and Sakura was just being stupid.
'Just follow the trail of enlightened and/or encouraged lost travelers and missing-nin turned monks' Sakura half expected her to say.
"Just follow the scent of ramen."
'... Touche.'
-------
Caught In the Act,
a Naruto fic
-------
Sakura found Naruto- the whole scent thing actually worked out rather well, she noticed belatedly, if you added it to the fact he was yelling and moaning like some animal- about a mile into the forest, messing around in some bushes, making a racket.
She stepped into a clearing, watching the poor plant shake, leaves flying everywhere. Sakura smirked, Naruto was being loud and it was damned funny to hear him try to curse whilst choking on leaves. After a moment, she coughed and said loudly, "Oi! Baka no Naruto!"
Naruto stood up, popping out of the shrubbery like a target in a shooting game. He hiked his loose pants up with an impatient tug, and they almost immediately slid back down to their former place, low- very low, as Sakura noted with embarrased interest- on his hips, black boxers peeking out. Naruto was smiling sheepishly, while simultaneously looking proud of himself.
Sakura's eyes traveled up the rumpled black shirt- gah, why was it so big and yet so clingy- to the teen's flushed face and hair, golden strands messy and tangled with leaves. The blond seemed to be hiding something in his hands, or maybe on them, behind his back.
"H-hey, Saku... Sakura-chan!" He stuttered slightly, looking guiltily at her and pouting embarrasedly.
"Naruto? What were you doing in that bush?" She asked slowly, not wanting to strain Naruto's brain. She really didn't have the patience for Naruto, especially this soon after a mission. It was trying, Sakura felt the need to constantly draw Naruto's attention to her, and Naruto with his 3-second attention span was not helping. Whatever, she was just here to return Naruto's jacket, and thank him for letting her borrow it. Since when did the Sand have snowstorms, anyway?
"Well! I was... just... just, ya' know, doing something," Naruto scrunched his eyes nervously, whilst Sakura watched on with amused and curious green eyes.
She considered the situation, calculating Naruto's nervous stuttering with Neji-esque scrutiny, brain slowly connecting the dots.
'secluded bush
plus
horny teenage shinobi
equals
#!&$??'
"Oh. Oh. I-I-I didn't know, Naruto, I mean-- of course, you know, like you- I- uh, uh, yeah, I'll be going now..." Sakura nearly tripped over herself in her haste to get out of the area, craning her back and neck around to shout more apologies and frantically wave the whole 'incident' off as nothing.
Three seconds later, she was running back, throwing Naruto his garish orange jacket, red in the face and still apologizing. Sakura's eyes were wide, and she poofed away with a transformation jutsu about a foot away from Naruto- which is way too close, as any Shinobi familiar with that jutsu could tell you. Coughing, and waving the smoke away with all available limbs- because everybody knows flailing around randomly magically makes smoke go away- Naruto wondered what had gotten into his teammate.
After exactly three seconds of deep- deep- thought, he waved the whole thing off as incidental and stretched, jumping out of the shrubbery. His froggy purse jangled in his hand, and Naruto petted it thoughtfully, saying, "I don't know what that was all about, but I'm sure glad Sakura-chan didn't catch me with my girly old froggy purse, imagine how uncomfortable that would have been!"
---
Owari?