Sasuke's No Good Very Bad Teammates
Summary: Naruto and Sakura have gone insane.
Or: Just after becoming Team 7 Naruto and Sakura go through a massive shift in personality, leaving Sasuke out of the loop and wondering what in the name of sanity could have happened to them. His only consolation is that Kakashi is just as weirded out as he is.
Chapter 2
A few hours into their mission and Sasuke started to regret his decision to press for a C-rank. Or, more specifically, for this particular C-rank. As if his weirdly acting teammates weren't enough, now he also had to bear their irritatingly grumpy client, who didn't let them forget for even a second that he had expected "real shinobi", not "bratty little kids who had never even left their village before".
It was too bad that in the shinobi world, strangling a client tended to be frowned upon.
Sasuke didn't know why the guy thought he needed "real shinobi" in the first place. So far their trip had been uneventful, and it was beyond him what anyone would want to achieve by attacking some old bridge builder.
A bush next to the road rustled, and a white rabbit jumped out.
"I gotta pee!" Naruto yelled, closely followed by a "Me too!" from Sakura. Both of them dashed away, leaving Kakashi and Sasuke alone with their client and sharing a glance. He found comfort in Kakashi's long-suffering expression, since it was proof that it was them who were crazy, not Sasuke.
"Well. Some subordinates you got there." Sasuke grit his teeth at the mocking tone. "I knew from the start–"
"Quiet."
"I mean, it's not like they would have even made a dif–"
"Down!"
Sasuke acted on instinct. A handful fabric, a painful thud and he and their client were lying on the ground. His breath came fast and heavy, his teacher's command sharp in his ears.
A giant sword had sunken into the tree behind them.
"Sasuke?"
His heart was threatening to jump out of his chest. His eyes were wide, struggling to take in the situation.
Kakashi stood between them and the sword (how had he moved so quickly?), shielding them from the man standing on its handle. The lower half of the man's face was covered by bandages, his forehead protector spotting a scratch through its symbol. Missing nin, his sluggish mind offered, remembering the detail from the academy.
"Sasuke!"
"F-Fine!" he said, answering belatedly. "I'm fine."
"What an honor." The voice sounded mocking. "The Copy Ninja in the flesh. Kakashi of the Sharingan."
Sharingan? What?!
"Zabuza Momochi, if I'm not mistaken?" Kakashi's voice was pleasant, like he was making small talk rather than facing an opponent. "You built yourself quite the reputation yourself."
Zabuza laughed, rugged and gruff. "Hand over the old man, and you won't have to face me."
"Ahh. I'm afraid that's going to be a problem. Sasuke," Kakashi said, raising his hand to his forehead protector. What was he doing? "Grab Tazuna-san and look for Sakura and Naruto. Stay put."
Objection bubbled up in his throat, but then his eyes landed on their opponent. Something about Zabuza sent chills down Sasuke's spine, icy needles of sweat glistening on his forehead. He could feel it. He was way, way out of his depth.
Tazuna was gaping at Zabuza, finally robbed for words, and Sasuke had to drag at his sleeve to get his attention.
"Now, we can't have that," Zabuza said, and stood in front of them in the blink of an eye.
Sasuke blocked the first hit on reflex. A kunai to his left, a kick from below. Sasuke jumped back, dragging Tazuna with him. A slicing pain in his arm, and he realized he hadn't managed to dodge completely.
"Sasuke! Go!" Two Kakashis were in front of him and Sasuke's thoughts were too scrambled and sluggish to make sense of it. One of them pushed him backwards, nearly making him fall, and it was enough to get him moving again.
He grabbed Tazuna, running into the trees without a glance back. The old man was silent, the only noise his own panting and the fighting noises from behind them.
He'd been useless back there. He hadn't been able to do anything. Sasuke clenched his fists, angry at himself. He should have attacked, should have done something! Instead he had frozen and left his teacher behind to fight for his life.
There was yelling somewhere up front. He changed direction, running towards it until he found a clearing. The sight greeting him made him freeze in his tracks.
Naruto dangled from a tree, bound in rope from head to toe. On the other side of the clearing, Sakura was bound to a tree with ninja wire, explosives placed all around her. Neither of them was trying to escape, too busy yelling at each other.
"–was trying to ambush them, what do you think?!"
"Well, so was I! How should I have known?"
"It's too dangerous, Naruto! What if you'd gotten hurt?!"
"What if I had gotten hurt? What if you'd gotten hurt!"
Sasuke didn't trust his voice, so he burst out of the trees and cut the rope binding Naruto without comment. His clueless teammate fell to the ground with a yelp, and Sasuke was halfway through freeing Sakura when he leaped up.
"Sasuke?! What are you doing here?"
"You're bleeding!" The alarm in Sakura's voice made him look at his arm. It was a scratch, nothing more. He ignored it.
"We were attacked. Kakashi-sensei told us to protect Tazuna-san and stay put."
"Right," Naruto said. "Of course."
They exchanged glances.
Five minutes later they stormed out of the forest ready to charge, and Sasuke was glad that this once they were all on the same page.
Until they realized that the fight was over. Trees all around were carved or unrooted, craters and furrows stamped into the ground around the battlefield. Zabuza was nowhere to be seen. There was only Kakashi, forehead protector in place and bloody scratches and tears in his uniform betraying the intensity of the battle.
Sasuke realized for the first time how strong Kakashi was. He felt stupid. The three of them would have only gotten in the way and made their teacher's victory more complicated.
"I told you to stay put," he said, scolding them with a look. He was still breathing heavily.
"Right, about that," Naruto started, one hand behind his head and a sheepish grin in place.
"Nevertheless," Kakashi cut him off, "Sasuke. You followed orders and got Tazuna-san out of harm's way. Good job. You two on the other hand." He frowned at Sakura and Naruto. "You ran off right before your team needed you. Both of you. What were you thinking?"
Sakura bit her lip, eyes dropping to the ground. "I'm sorry, Sensei."
"Sorry," Naruto echoed, and he sounded like he meant it.
By the time they arrived at Tazuna's house Sasuke was exhausted, the adrenaline rush long faded. He didn't pay attention to the introductions or to the conversation at the dinner table, gladly sinking into the blankets Tazuna and his family had offered them afterwards.
He was woken at night by a ruffling noise next to him, where Naruto was sleeping. Or supposed to be sleeping. Sasuke kept his eyes shut, ignoring his teammate as he seemed to get up and no, he'd had enough for the day, he did not care and would not be dragged into whatever Naruto was up to this time.
He nearly managed to fall back to sleep when he heard it again. From the other room. Where he knew for sure Sakura was sleeping.
Nope. No way. He would not open his eyes. He refused to care.
Sasuke turned around and resolutely went back to sleep.
Morning came around and all that remained was the nagging feeling that something had slipped from his mind, quickly overshadowed by Kakashi's announcement that they would go into the forest for some training.
"Learning to utilize chakra properly is essential for aspiring shinobi. In order for it to become second nature to you, we're going to do a little exercise."
"An exercise?" Sakura stifled a yawn, dark bags under half-lidded eyes. Had she not slept well? Naruto didn't look better, either.
"Yes," Kakashi said cheerfully. "We're going to climb trees."
Sasuke frowned at him, wondering if he'd misheard. "Climbing trees? How's that going to help us in a fight?"
"It's going to help you practice your chakra flow. Watch this." He proceeded to walk up a tree, demonstrating how to use chakra to stick to its bark. It made sense to Sasuke: it wouldn't work with too little or too much chakra, so it was the perfect exercise to learn balancing chakra flow.
"I have to talk to Tazuna-san some more. I'll come back later. Have fun!" He waved and disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Fine, then. Sasuke looked up at the nearest tree, his next obstacle to becoming a stronger shinobi. He put his foot on the bark, letting chakra flow into the sole of his foot until he felt it stick. He managed three wobbly steps before he slipped and fell to the ground with a thud.
He leaped up, scowling.
This was harder than it looked.
"Go a few steps back and try–" Sakura broke of with a deep yawn. "Try running from there."
Sasuke whirled around and stared. He was the only one following Kakashi's orders. His teammates were sprawled in the grass, leaning against tree trunks and clearly doing nothing to overcome the challenge their teacher had left them with. Naruto looked like he might have fallen asleep.
"Aren't you gonna do what Kakashi-sensei told us to?"
"R-Riiiight," Sakura said, another yawn drawing out the word. "Naruto. Naruto come on, you need to do the exercise."
Naruto didn't stir. Sasuke could hear him snoring.
"Naruto…" Sakura trailed off, falling back against her own trunk and eyes drooping.
Sasuke was left staring incredulously. Fine. It wasn't Sasuke's fault if they didn't take their training seriously. This only confirmed his conviction that their so called "team" was a complete waste of time.
What could both of them have done that left them this exhausted, anyway? Not that he really cared.
Sasuke left his lazy teammates sleeping in the grass and kept practicing his treewalking.
Besides their training, the next few days passed uneventfully. To Sasuke's utter shock, both Sakura and Naruto climbed their trees effortlessly when Kakashi asked them to – something he himself had not managed after hours of training. How had the two dead weights done it without putting in any effort whatsoever?
It made Sasuke furious and motivated him to train morning to night, non-stop until somebody forced him to call it a day. There was no way he was falling behind those two. No. Way.
Sasuke trained, his teammates lazed around and the bridge was built, and soon it was time for them to return to Konoha.
"That's odd," Kakashi said on their last day, uncharacteristically serious for once. "Someone seemed very determined to stop this bridge from being build. Why did they give up after all?"
"I don't know, Sensei. Maybe whoever was in charge had a… change of heart." Sakura gave a sunny smile that made Sasuke shudder.
"Yeah," Naruto said. "Or maybe his lackeys weren't as loyal as he thought they were." He grinned innocently, and Sasuke didn't bother to ask what they meant by that.
Kakashi shot both of his students looks, the special kind, the mixture of puzzlement and wariness that only Sakura and Naruto earned, but let it go.
For Sasuke it was yet another addition to his growing lists of reasons why something had to be seriously wrong with his teammates.
A/N: And that wraps up the wave arc. In just under 2000 words. Yay! :D
My betas are the wonderful Igornerd, PyrothTenka and To Mockingbird - who is still responsible for this story to exist in the first place! Giant thanks, and check them out!
Thanks for reading, and please don't forget to leave a review!
~Gwen
PS: My tumblr is xxgwenstacyxx!
