Title: Skinny Dipping
Author: JackieLupin
Disclaimer: Anything that you recognize from Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, not to lonely old me in ol' Kennebunkport Maine.
Rating: PG13, for suggestive language and cursing!
Summary: The members of Team 7 are on a normal, boring mission, and on the return, Sakura decides to take advantage of the lake. The POV also switches between Sakura and Sasuke, so I'll try to make the transitions very clear. Sequel to Redemption.
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Sakura's POV
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Anyone foolhardy enough to be coerced into accepting a B-rank mission to hot, sticky, sandy Sunagakure would be on his or her last reserves of patience and energy at the end of the day. And Sakura was no exception; she blamed the heat for snapping at Naruto, blamed the distraction of sweat beading on her upper lip on how she glared daggers at Kakashi's back, and blamed the sand in her sandals on how she refused to speak to Sasuke, even though he shot inquisitive looks at her and her foul mood.
And when the desert eventually gave way to large, open fields and green life, Sakura immediately gave a deep, guttural sigh of thanks and let her bangs fall across her face to hide her tears of relief. This mission was tiring in all ways; as it was their first mission with Sasuke back in Konoha, there was a draining tension and awkwardness between them all.
It took the men of Team 7 a moment to realize that Sakura had stopped walking. Kakashi was the first to notice. Too suddenly for poor Naruto, the older jounin shot out his arm, which the blond walked into with a smack. "Ow, sensei!" he complained angrily, "What the hell was that for?"
"How many times do I have to tell you, Naruto, that I'm not your sensei anymore?" Kakashi said dryly, and looked over at Sakura, his lone eye curious. "Sakura seems to have stopped."
Sasuke, who had kept walking, stopped and turned to look at her as well. With all three sets of eyes gazing at her, Sakura quickly blinked back the tears and grinned uncomfortably. Sasuke's dark, bottomless eyes that were fixated on her face made her cheeks burn and her head spin.
She hated every moment of it.
"Well, considering everyone is exhausted," Sakura began when the others waited for her response, uncharacteristically quiet due to their fatigue, "We could stop and make camp for the night. We're close enough to Konoha that we needn't worry about other shinobi. There are always other scouting groups around twilight on the lookout anyway."
Kakashi put a friendly arm around her shoulders. "Alright, we'll make camp. I for one am tired." He made an elaborate show of yawning and stretching to emphasize his point. Sasuke stared at the pair rather oddly; Sakura avoided his gaze like it was the plague, too tired to care if he noticed.
Sakura instead grinned up at her old sensei. "You know, Kaka-sempai, if you're so tired, you can't read your Icha Icha tonight. You need a good night's sleep."
Sasuke was still looking at them in confusion, until Naruto decided to smack him affectionately upside the head. "Teme," he yawned, "Take out your bedroll, I don't want to bother setting up the tent tonight."
The Uchiha just shrugged, and with one last almost-plaintive glance towards Sakura, he turned his back and dropped his bags from his back.
"I'm going to get the firewood," Sakura said before Kakashi had the chance, and giggled inwardly while he sent her a look of chagrin, "I'll be back soon." And with that, she scuttled off. When she was a couple hundred yards from their "camp," Sakura sighed and rubbed her forehead with her hand. Dealing with Sasuke, after so long apart, pounded on her already frayed nerves. She told herself that she wasn't in love with him anymore, and to prove it to herself, she tried to keep her distance. Oh, but who was she kidding? Her distance actually confused Sasuke. She could see it in his eyes throughout the entire mission. Was he expecting her to just grovel at his feet? He probably just cared for her as a friend, and was wondering what he could have done to make her so angry at him.
Sakura sighed again, bending down to pick up a tried log that looked promising for a nice warm fire. She giggled; an hour or two ago she would have given anything to be cold. Now, back in Fire country, she wanted warmth. Could she ever make up her mind?
No, she reflected sadly, thoughts drifting back to Sasuke and his hurt face, No, I guess I can't.
The sound of water gurgling made her head snap up almost painfully. Water! Her face broke out in a grin, and glancing feverishly around her and weighing the consequences, Sakura decided it was worth it.
Her feet carried her to the river much faster than she could have imagined. Sakura hastily dumped the sticks and logs in a pile on the shore, emerald eyes focused on the water, the gentle waves that lapped and smoothed the sand. That's it, she thought gleefully, while taking off her kunai pouch, slinging off her belt and pack, and removing her boots, I can finally get clean! No more sand, no more chafing, just clean clean water!
Her hands slowed as she grasped her shirt. Maybe she shouldn't take it off… Sakura guiltily glanced around the woods again, probing into the darkness with her chakra. She couldn't feel any life energy besides that of the birds… but that didn't mean anything.
Sakura shook her head and let out a laugh. She was just nervous that Naruto, Kakashi or Sasuke would catch her. "I'm just paranoid," she chuckled, and unzipped her shirt and flung it to the ground. Then, she grasped the waist of her shorts and slid her hips out of them too.
Shivering slightly, she wrapped her arms around herself. But Sakura was feeling unusually adventurous tonight, and since she hadn't gone swimming naked since her and Ino were five year old, giggling girls, it seemed like a great opportunity to take a risk and laugh about it later. And besides, she still had on her chest bindings and underwear!
"Calm down Sakura," she said to herself, "Get a grip. I won't be long, I just want to get clean!" Hands trembling, she began to unwind the bindings that supported her breasts. She took a deep breath as soon as she was free of the bandages. The cold air whipped around her unclothed torso, but Sakura was too excited to finally be clean to care. She then stepped out of her underwear and stood, completely naked, at the edge of the river. Then, with a grin and a bloodcurdling shriek, Sakura leapt into the river.
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Sasuke's POV
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Back at the camp, Sasuke was frustrated.
Naruto's snores were deafening. It was a surprise that no shinobi had showed up to figure out what was causing the racket, but then again, all shinobi hailing from Konoha would already know what - or rather who- caused the disturbance.
Each page turning in Kakashi's Icha Icha book was ridiculously loud.
And Sakura had been gone for an hour and no one besides Sasuke was remotely concerned with that little detail. He released an angry hurrumph, just to see if his two teammates would turn at the noise. Well, not Naruto. But Kakashi, it seemed, was ignoring his presence, something that irked Sasuke greatly. Well, Kakashi always had kept himself aloof from his old team-
The snapping of a twig in the undergrowth nearby caused Sasuke to start. He leapt to his feet and gripped his shuriken, intent on finding whoever it was who was on the move.
"Sit, Sasuke," Kakashi ordered calmly.
As Sasuke turned to look disbelievingly in the direction of his old sensei, three Konoha shinobi landed in their little clearing. Inuzuka Kiba and his monster of a dog Akamaru, Hyuuga Neji and the infamous Byakugan, and Nara Shikamaru, with his trademark slouch and expression of the utmost boredom. Sasuke groaned internally. Not these three dobes, he thought.
Speaking of dobes...
Sasuke walked over to where Naruto was sprawled on the ground. After leaning over his sleeping form and debating how to wake him up, Sasuke settled for a light kick in the ribs before wisely taking a step back.
Just as expected, Naruto awoke violently, jumping to his feet with his hands already beginning the hand seals for the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. When his eyes fell on the three newcomers, Naruto dropped his hands and grinned. "Hey, what're you all doing here?" he asked.
Kiba grinned back. "Nice to see you too, Naruto! We're on a patrol, that's all." His eyes gazed around the clearing. "Hey, where's our favorite medic?"
"Oh, Sakura?" Naruto replied, "She's right..." Upon closer inspection, the blond quickly searched their camp. "Well, I thought she..."
"She went to get firewood," Sasuke responded instead, "More than an hour ago, actually." Five pairs of eyes looked at him, and he forced his body not to visibly stiffen. Understandably, he knew that they didn't trust him yet. Not after... well, not after he left Konoha. Neji's eyes, however, proved to be the iciest. Sasuke had no idea what he had done to the Hyuuga prodigy, but then again, he didn't really care. From day one the haughty Hyuuga had rubbed him the wrong way.
"Neji, why don't you look for her?" Shikamaru suggested, sitting down near Kakashi with a yawn. "You can find her the fastest out of all of us." With a lazy grin at the equally lazy Copy Ninja, he drew a deck of cards from his pocket. "Game, Hatake?"
Meanwhile, Neji activated his Byakugan. "Kakashi-sempai," he asked of the older shinobi, who looked up from the cards in his hands, "Which direction did Sakura head? It'll narrow my search for her if I know."
Kakashi pointed. "That way."
Sasuke watched Neji intently as the brown-haired shinobi skimmed the surrounding forest. For a few moments, Neji didn't seem to notice anything peculiar, and Sasuke was just beginning to get impatient when the Hyuuga did a very un-Hyuuga like thing; the man did a double take before actually blushing.
"What is it?" Sasuke demanded.
Neji shook his head and deactivated his kekkei genkai. "N-Nothing," he stuttered, pointedly looking down and away from the direction in which he had found Sakura.
"Well, did you find her?"
Silence.
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Sakura's POV
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With a sigh of content, Sakura slowly climbed out of the river. She threw her soaked hair over her shoulder with a toss of her head and stretched, wishing she had thought to bring a towel to dry herself off with. Shivering, she thought, To hell with it, and put her clothes back on her soaked body. She grabbed the bundle of wood she had collected and raced back to the camp, her teammates, and the warm fire they were going to start!
When she returned, she found Kiba, Shikamaru, Naruto and Kakashi playing cards, Neji Hyuuga watching their game intently, and a very frustrated Sasuke sitting on the fringes of the gathering of shinobi. Akamaru was laying against Sasuke, licking his hand every now and then. Sasuke grimaced and wiped his slimy hand on his pants.
The last Uchiha looked up at her as soon as she entered the clearing. Relief and confusion passed over his face before he quickly schooled his features and turned away. Her presence was also ignored by the other shinobi as well, with only a lazy grunt from Shikamaru at her greeting and a wave from Kiba. Neji, strangely, turned very red and pointedly avoided looking at her.
Settling down behind Kakashi, Sakura threw the wood into a pile, using a very small version of the Katon jutsu to light it since every time she used flint, she ended up cutting her hands to bits. As soon as the fire was steadily burning, Sakura dropped her back and stretched her tired muscles.
After a few moments, Sakura glanced over to the others; Kiba saw her look, and with a roguish grin, patted the ground next to him. Finally, an invitation! She and Kiba had always gotten along, once he discovered that she was a dog-lover like him. And besides, Naruto and Kiba were so alike anyway that it was almost as if they were one in the same!
Sakura stood, reached over Sasuke purposely to give Akamaru a friendly pat on the head, and then sat next to Kiba. She ignored the chills down her spine from her closeness to Sasuke and forced herself to grin and concentrate on her friend.
"Sakura!" the dog man called, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and squeezing her. "You're all wet!"
Sakura laughed. "We just got back from our mission to Suna," she explained to him, "I was really sandy, so I took a bath." He still hadn't removed his arm from around her, but she didn't complain. She didn't even have to look at Sasuke to know he was steadily growing angrier; his chakra was pulsing dangerously. Before long, all the shinobi would notice it.
"Well! Next time you're going, count me in," Kiba teased, and the others chuckled as Sakura blushed heavily. Sasuke's eyes were boring holes into her back.
"We'll see," she giggled, peeking over at the cards he held in his right hand in order to change the subject before Sasuke lost it altogether. "Aw, Kiba, your cards suck!"
"Oi!" he cried, "No they don't!"
Shikamaru gave a lazy hand wave, "That's it, I'm still in. I'm raising the gamble!"
"I could be lying!" Sakura replied with a grin, "Kiba could have a great hand!"
"Nah, Shikamaru's right," Kakashi said, "I'll take that and raise it another 200 ryo!"
"Agreed!" came from Neji, tossing his coins in the middle.
Naruto, however, groaned. "C'mon guys, I don't have the 400 ryo!" He ran his hand through his wild blond hair in frustration. "Aw man!"
Kiba scowled and playfully shoved Sakura. "Thanks, mate," he grumbled. He threw his cards down and scratched his head. "Alright, time for business! Shikamaru, you're up! What d'you have?"
Shikamaru showed his cards; a full house. "Beat that, Kakashi," he goaded.
With a sigh, Team 7's ex-sensei threw his cards above Kiba's. "One pair," he muttered.
"Neji?" Sakura asked expectantly, surprised to see him blush yet again when their eyes made contact. Honestly, what was up with him? He averted his white eyes and showed his cards.
"Oi, Neji!" Naruto called, "What's up with you? You blush every time you look at Sakura!" The grin that was spreading across his face suddenly disappeared as the Hyuuga punched him in the shoulder.
"Shut up, Naruto!" he hissed angrily.
"What is it, Neji?" Kiba goaded, "We all know that Sakura is pretty, but I thought you weren't interested in girls!"
Something seemed to click in Sasuke's head as Sakura's eyes landed on him; he did a double take, and his murderous aura suddenly seemed to circle around Neji. The Hyuuga noticed, for he glared back, almost warningly, as if he were daring the Uchiha to say it.
"Sakura," Sasuke said, his voice very strained. His eyes never left Neji's. "You went swimming, right?"
"Well, yeah..."
"Did you... I mean..." Now Sasuke's cheeks were burning red.
Sakura was completely confused. Yeah, she went swimming... But what would that have to do with the fact that Neji couldn't even look in her direction without blushing? What the hell was going on?
Kakashi cleared his throat. "I think what Sasuke means," he began, "is were you wearing your clothes when you went swimming?"
Sakura felt her face drain of color. "I-I," she stuttered, and quickly looked away from Kakashi's smirking face, "Well, no. No, I wasn't."
Shikamaru suddenly began to laugh uproariously. Poor Naruto, however, looked confused, while Kiba sat and watched the scene unfold before him, scratching Akamaru behind the ears and grinning from ear to ear.
"We asked Neji to find you," Sasuke bit out, crossing his arms. He still refused to look at her, though she could see the tips of his ears now were burning red.
"Oh no," she breathed.
Neji had seen her. Neji had seen her naked. Completely unclothed, and she had paraded around in all of her glory most likely long enough for him to see everything. Burning red, Sakura wrapped her arms around herself, as though it would shield her.
"Well," she cleared her throat, thoroughly embarrassed, "I'm, uh...going to bed. Night!" Carefully, she got up and walked slowly towards her bedroll, trying her best to look straight ahead and not trip on her way. She threw her bedroll open at the edge of the clearing and climbed in, arms crossed firmly across her chest.
No way, she thought to herself as she disappeared underneath the blankets, pressing cool hands to her hot, flaming cheeks, Never again will I go swimming without anything on.
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The end.
So that was very fun to write. I actually began this MONTHS ago, before even "The Mission From Hell" was finished. Weird, right? Anyway, I basically dug this out of my closet and decided to finish it.
I also wanted to play around a bit with the thoughts other characters other than just the main character's. Or in this case, Sakura. So I included Sasuke!
Do not worry, the next chapter of "Firefight" is still on its way!