Disclaimer: Everything belongs to Kishimoto.
AN: My gratitude for all the editing folks over at DLP.
Monkey Business
Chapter II
Naruto stood at a large funeral pyre. The smell of burnt wood lingered about him and the others who paid their respect to the late Hokage. All they had of him now was a picture, where he looked regally at them. In each wrinkle on his brow was hidden wisdom—and the weight of a village pulling the skin down.
His face on the mountain; they had that, too.
The rest, the important part, was memory. And so forgetting became the greatest fear.
The wound was still fresh, though. When Naruto tried, he could easily recall the Hokage's voice, how his hand ruffled his hair, the laughter and sage advice, and the scrunched up face when some Chūnin dragged him before the old man because of a prank—a face drawn between hidden amusement, from one practical joker to another, and expected disapproval. Naruto still had no trouble remembering how the Hokage had taught him to read. If he went even further into the past he knew he wouldn't have to search long before he also found, dusted but alive, the memory of being read to, of hearing that crusty old voice sing a children's song popular in Konoha. The rhythm was still there. The melody, too. If he wanted to, he could probably sing it.
And still . . . he feared that he'd forget. Because those were personal things, and memories faded with time, and what happened if the memories were gone? Or if they had dulled so much that all he'd be able to recall was a concept, the abstract knowledge that he'd known this man, the Hokage, and that he'd been good to him—all the how's and why's lost.
Naruto bowed before the picture. Sticks with incense stuck out of a bowl next to it. He hated the smell. Just as the smell in Konoha's hospital covered up a bitter fight, this one made death official. One desperately fudged the evidence, the other shoved it right into your face. Broke your soul on it, too.
Around him, people sniffled into their tissues, or kept looking ahead with hard, controlled faces, or cried. So many of them, to all of whom this man with the giant liver-spots and hairs on them had been a father, or something close to that.
Naruto stepped away. He had been the last. They would take the urn with the ashes now and bury it wherever Hokages were buried. The old man had insisted on being burned. Whatever the reasons, they must have been well thought out.
Naruto walked home amidst a crowd of mourners—yet always a few steps removed. Each step accompanied by the destruction of Orochimaru's invasion, he thought that perhaps forgetting wasn't the greatest fear after all. It seemed hard to forget all this. Impossible even.
The pit in his stomach was something else.
What could he have done to change what happened? He thought of all the ways he should have been stronger, faster, more able, to save what was dearest to him. He resented the Bijū in his gut. It had made the Hokage's second term necessary. And yet he also asked himself why he hadn't learned to use it better, to make it a weapon? Would the old man have died that way?
The answer was so close he could taste it. One more step down that road amidst the sniveling crowd and he'd hold it in his hands.
But whenever Naruto felt himself in reach . . .
He woke up, his pulse pounding too quickly, his hands clammy.
The sun shone through the blinds, pasting a riffled motif on the floor. Sakura sat at the table, reading.
"You're up? Good," she said, noticing him sitting up in the bed. She smiled at him. "The mercenaries will move out in half an hour, so you've still got some time. I got fresh bread from the market and some butter if you want."
"Thanks . . . " he said, still not fully there. He was grasping at his dream, but the more he reached, the more it faded away—until all he was left with was a vague feeling of shame, the face of the old man, and no idea how to connect the two while knowing they somehow belonged together.
They lay on a roof in Seho, farthest village away from Kinzoku, closest to the swamp. Scattered all throughout the village: armored mercenaries making the appearance of searching for something.
The search had taken them six hours so far and nothing of note had happened yet.
"I'm hungry," said Naruto.
"We're on a mission," said Sakura.
"No reason to starve."
She threw him an annoyed look. "We're not leaving post on a mission, Naruto. That's unprofessional."
"They're not doin' anything!"
The shout echoed. They pulled their heads back so they weren't visible from the streets. Naruto held up his hands. With a lowered voice he said, "It's not that I don't understand what'cha mean, Sakura. But they're not movin' at all. Probably won't either in the ten minutes it'll take to get some food."
Sakura made ready to protest, but her stomach chose that moment for a hideous betrayal.
Naruto grinned at her. "If they didn't hear my shout, they'll definitely have heard that. Nice growl there, tiger."
"Shut up . . ."
"I'll get us something, just you wait."
"Naruto, wait, that's—"
But he was already gone before she could say no. He swung himself down into an alley, put up his best Henge, and went for the next joint that sold food. There was no Ramen place in this village—that much he'd checked already. It was actually the first thing he always checked when entering any place; Jiraiya called it The Best Situational Awareness Utilized For The Silliest Purpose.
Chicken would be alright though. He just needed some time to stretch his legs. To move around. Which was also the reason he didn't use a clone for this task.
Observations made you yawn more often than they brought results. It was much better to throw some stones and see if that created ripples than to wait for ripples happening on their own. But he seemed pretty much alone with that. Being inconspicuous was a tedious thing that everyone took very seriously.
And he had to admit that Sakura, lovely as she was, annoyed him with her rules. Her damn stomach growled. It was as if she put away human nature for the duration of a mission. She hadn't been that way before. Or at least not to that degree.
Fifteen minutes later he returned to the roof with two cartons of chicken and rice and they began to eat.
Naruto enjoyed it for all it was worth, if only to provide a counterbalance.
"We shouldn't be doing this . . ." said Sakura.
"Look, Sakura, there's nothing they'll do, is there? They've done nothing so far but stand around."
"We should be finding out what they're doing . . ."
"We tried, and all that got us was 'we're on the lookout for the swamp maker.' And that they definitely aren't, because we know they're part of the swamp maker, so whatever the hell they're doing here, 's not chasin' anybody. So for all I know it's just standing around like silly ducks."
"They've got to have a purpose though," said Sakura. She gave up her reluctant eating and adopted a style more suited to someone whose stomach made the noise of a starved tigress about to feast.
Naruto shrugged. "They don't show nothing so far," he said around a piece of chicken. "Maybe it's not the best place to do watching, this roof."
Sakura looked confused. "It is the best vantage point in the village, equidistant to the village borders on each side. If something happens we'll know immediately." She nodded confidently. "It's the most reasonable spot to see if something goes on."
"Equi-what?" What the hell had Grandma Tsunade and those finicky bastards at the hospital done with her? He made a mental note to get a hold of that issue later. Couldn't let her become dry like that, like some old prune.
"It means being the same distance away each side. It's really the most appropriate spot according to my calculations. We'll see whatever happens perfectly."
"'s not the seeing I'm talkin' about, Sakura. We've been seein' for hours, just there's nothing to see here. What we need is to get on the ground. 'Finger to the pulse' is what the old pervert always says."
"Pulse?"
"People. They talk and we talk and maybe they'll let something slip and then we're a whole deal farther down that road."
Sakura put away the empty cup. Her fingernails seemed interesting to her all of a sudden.
"I'm not sure . . . " she said.
Naruto cocked his head, taking her in, suddenly all the professionalism gone, replaced instead by a load of shyness and finger-staring. Cute in its own way but throwing up a lot of questions.
"You alright, Sakura? Why're you not sure?"
"I . . ." She trailed off, then looked up. Cheeks red, she ground out, "I'm not good with improvising. There." She crossed her arms. "I can talk well if I can stay as myself but if I have to play someone else or do infiltration work . . . I'm just not good at that. It's always a blunder and I'm nervous, and my thoughts get jumbled and . . ."
"Easy there," said Naruto.
The red across Sakura's cheeks flared up harder. "I . . . ruined missions before with this. My track record isn't too good."
Naruto nodded, leaning toward her.
Finally her awkward keeping to textbook rules made sense. Failed missions rarely did any good for a shinobi's confidence. The aftermath of the Valley of the End had made that clear to him. And if she'd bungled stuff like this before, chances were she'd overcompensate and try her hardest not to again, and that'd just make her tense and she'd screw up all over again.
He understood it, better than she likely thought he did.
"I don't think that's too important," he said after a moment. "So you're no good at talkin' to people you've got to press for information? Big deal. You're a combat medic anyway. The way I see it, what you need to be good at is clubbing people and patchin' them up." A quick, brutal shiver shot down his spine. "You've no trouble in either of those, Sakura. Believe me."
She looked up. Hopeful but still uncertain, as if she couldn't quite find it in herself to trust that not being perfect didn't make her a bad shinobi.
"But it's such an essential quality," she said. "Iruka always told us information is key. Ibiki, too!"
Naruto shrugged. "They never said you've got to be the one to get the information. Can you imagine Caterpillar Brows going about squeezin' people subtle, like? No way." Naruto dusted off his shoulder, then leaped to his feet. "It's teams in Konoha for a reason, Sakura, and we're the best damn team there is, so it's all 'bout syne—synagery. Us workin' together is what I want to say. So you'll keep on the lookout up here and I'll go down and get some intel, and then we find out what's what. And if I get busted hard when we're slamming fists with that kunoichi again, then I need you to patch me up, cause that's somethin' I can't do."
"Thanks, Naruto," she said. As her lips moved into a grateful smile, Naruto felt a funny twitching in his stomach and mentally patted his shoulder for a job well done.
He made his way to the streets below, thinking that women really had silly concerns sometimes. As if he'd give one whit if she couldn't talk a smooth game to some mercenary. Besides, if she really needed information, she could crush a toe or two and then go on asking questions. Not many people in the world who would say no to such a convincing method.
She had been in the middle of a talk with one of the more loose-lipped mercenaries about prostitution—of which she knew a whole deal more than she should, on account of Jiraiya's sheer presence—and booze, when the man uttered the sentence, "It ought to happen soon, babe. Better get to yer hut or what have you and hide yer family." The mercenary took a another swig. Sake spilled into his beard. "And save yerself, of course," he added with a laugh. "If yer still 'round I'll find ye and then we can continue, eh. Yer by far the most chilled of them damsels in this hovelin' gathering of huts."
She held a manicured hand to her mouth. Hair cascaded down her back like an avalanche of blond seduction, each strand positioned by long practiced habit to ensure the most alluring vision no matter the angle. He—pardon—She had met few men who'd been able to say no to a conversation with her.
"What are you talking about?" she said, putting a tremble into her voice. "It's a nice a day, why'd I need to hide, honey? And you know I'm living on my own. There's really no one else."
The mercenary's eyes lit up. "I will definitely find yer later . . . but yer've got to go now."
She snuggled up to him, ignoring the boozy breath. "You sure?" she breathed, tracing circles on his tattooed biceps.
He looked conflicted. In fact, she hadn't ever seen such a conflicted look since the last time Chōji had to choose between two meals because his allowance ran out. Was that pride she felt? Oh yes, it was.
With a look of supreme effort, the man pried her away, gently as you please, and said, "Really sorry, babe. But it'll have ta wait. I'll find yer though. Promise. Now"—he mustered a stern expression—"yer better get inside. The animals will come soon, and yer ought ta be far'way from them beasts."
A last try. Some more information to wheedle out.
She put on her best come-hither look. "The only animals I see is we two, honey. And I assure you, given some privacy we can make any beast blush."
Wrong move.
Instead of responding, the mercenary shoved her into an alley and pressed his lips on her face. The taste of garlic, onions and booze gave her a moment of sheer panic. Then the rough lips were gone, and the mercenary left her alone in the alley.
The Henge puffed away. She became He.
And he spat on the ground. Once, twice. When all the saliva was gone, he still tried for a third time. "Bastard used tongue on me! Disgusting! I'll kill that son of a bitch!" All rational that he had provoked it weighed nothing against that breath and sensation, and the feeling of murder in his gut.
In moments like this the Kyuubi actually had the highest chance of escape.
Naruto created a clone. A seal later it sprouted water into his mouth and he gargled.
"Again!"
After the third time he wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
Animals. What the heck did that even mean? A bunch of birds carpet bombing the village?
He glanced at the sky with suspicion. He knew the world liked such moments to screw with people. The moment you dismissed the bird theory, a sole specimen was on its way to get, literally, the drop on you.
No bird though. Better to meet up with Sa—
A cry from the outskirts of the village. High-pitched. Naruto narrowed his eyes. Children liked to wail, but that hadn't been the normal kind of outburst. Usually those amounted to, 'I want this and am not getting it.' This one though had the effect of, 'Dear God, Why did Mama and Papa push me toward the lion?'
He shot off to the nearest roof. And, upon turning his head to find Sakura, crashed into the hairy chest of a giant gorilla.
He staggered back, blinking. The gorilla, red eyes rimmed with blue circles, rampaged forward with a guttural grunt. Naruto blocked a wild fist and felt firsthand that the gorilla used chakra to enhance its punches.
"Big beasty," he said, wincing as the anvil-like fist hammered against his block again. "But not big enough for this, are you?" Naruto juked to the side, took the arm, leveraged the weight on his hip, and threw the gorilla with a bump down into the street. It landed with a thump and an uprising of dust around it.
"There's another one of them," he heard a rough voice from below.
"Kill it."
"Something's strange," said the voice again. "It . . . it didn't jump, sarge. Just . . . fell? Can gorillas fall?"
"Maybe it tripped?" said a third voice.
"I don't give no rat's ass if that beast tripped or fell or flew, you dipshits. Cut off the head, put a spear through it, and be done with that thing. There's more of them coming."
Naruto left them and met up with Sakura. Together they observed the mercenaries forget their fiscal differences and band together in order to defend Seho's population from aggressive and severely over-sized animals.
Still no birds. Though the twenty foot long snake winding itself through the village was more than enough. As was the house-sized crocodile that tore through stalls with its jaws, crunching on the wooden boards like they were toothpicks.
"Should we help them?" asked Sakura.
Naruto shook his head. "It's their work, let 'em finish this up themselves."
"We should keep an eye on the villagers."
"Right. If one of them's in the way of a beast, we'll save 'em. All sneaky, like."
The fracas lasted for another hour. Naruto and Sakura didn't intervene beyond smuggling a crying baby out of the way of a four thousand pound crocodile. What they observed afterwards was chaos and confusion among the villagers, who turned to the mercenaries that had gathered in the middle of the village square.
"I . . . I don't know what to say," said the village elder, looking helplessly about. None of the wooden shacks used by merchants around the square had survived. Tarpaulins lay strewn across the floor, mud bricks between them; here and there a pile of splinters and the occasional puddle of blood.
The place smelled muddy and of swamp and sweat. One house, solid stone, had giant scratch marks from one corner to another.
"It's alright," said one of the mercenaries. He wore a good set of armor; two swords hung at his hip. "Thank God that we've been around for a while to find out who made that swamp. I can't imagine what would've happened hadn't we been here."
The elder twisted the sleeves of his robe. "Yes . . . Yes indeed. I can't either"—He looked about, stumped by the circumstances—"I . . . thank you, good sirs. We don't have much in terms of payment, but . . . but Seho is known for its crabs! And all other kinds of seafood!" Amidst the confusion, a thread of pride entered the man's voice, shining out through his eyes also. He used that thread like a lifeline, clinging to it. "If you wish, good sirs, please stay the night and enjoy what we have to offer. We can give you a place to sleep and food, and what else you might need we can arrange, surely."
"That is very kind of you," said the mercenary. "We will take you up on your generous offer. I cannot speak for all of my fellow brothers in arms, but I think that, as long as this crisis continues, some of them would not object to standing guard."
The elder stepped forward, unbelieving, as if seeing a mirage. Which Naruto thought he was actually seeing as well, because altruistic mercenaries was such an oxymoron you couldn't just solve an equation like that.
He shared a skeptical look with Sakura.
"Really?" said the elder. Then he cleared his throat. "We would be grateful if you were to help us out in such dire times."
The mercenary nodded, letting his gaze swivel through the crowd of civilians, lingering longer on the children. "It's not exactly the way we usually operate," he said, making a rueful gesture, "but you've got a lot of kids around here, and picturing what might happen to them . . . listen, I know at least some of the guys behind me personally, and even if we're mercenaries, we're still just as human as everyone else. If you'd continue to give them food and board I'm sure they could be convinced to stay free of any other charge."
Then he put up a mercantile and sharp grin that verged on being overstretched. "Only as long as the problem with the swamp isn't resolved, of course. Afterwards, if you still want our services you ought to pay. Can't work for free forever. A man's got to live, and a mercenary not making money doesn't stay one for long."
The elder laughed throatily. "Of course, good sir. All in nature's course, isn't it?" He grew solemn. "Thank you," he said. "I know how good a deal this is, and in the name of the village you have my gratitude."
The exchange ended and the mercenary leader went with the elder to talk to some of the other soldiers, convincing them to stay. One young man close by, on whose face a frown was building up, made to speak with the elder. Before he reached him though, a familiar mercenary, likely still having the breath of a dying skunk, put a hand on his shoulder and led him away, talking quietly.
Naruto scratched his cheek, letting all this fly around in his mind.
"Don't think we're goin' to get much more than this," he said.
"That was more than enough for one day," said Sakura.
"Tired?"
She shook her head. "More confused than anything."
"You believe what he said?"
"Not a word," said Sakura with pinched lips and a mightily displeased expression.
"Thought so," said Naruto. "Let's hike back. The old pervert's gonna wanna know 'bout this."
The job of an unwilling herb hunter was, most of all, boring, repetitive, filled with crouching, the tedious chirping of birds, the annoying buzz of insects, the feeling of worms crawling between your toes, the experience of finding roots in your way and living in damp areas, and lastly, of a continuous expenditure of chakra for an essentially useless purpose.
Uchiha Sasuke swatted a mosquito to death, crouched, and plucked a mushroom with the texture of a soggy biscuit from between two roots. Hearing two more mosquitos buzz closer, he raised his eyes to them. The wheels got an extra spin. One might call it a bit of deserved extra meanness. In any case, the mosquitos fell dumbly to the ground, buzzing in a circle before hitting a puddle and drowning.
Satisfied, Sasuke put the mushrooms into a zip bag in his hand.
Some people found the practice of mushroom gathering serene. They enjoyed it and, if they belonged to an especially joyous bunch, were always up for singing a song. Sasuke did not belong to that group.
He spied the next mushroom. It was red and had little black dots. To the usual observer it was invisible; a mushroom evolved to utilize its measly chakra for an almost impenetrable Genjutsu. One of incredible complexity, which really was the strangest thing. A stroke of genius in evolutionary terms, just that evolution held no candle to Uchiha Sasuke. Still, even though his Sharingan could break through the illusion, the task gave him a terrible headache. He felt how his prized Sharingan had to actually work—work!—to accustom itself to every new mushroom, as if the things changed their illusionary makeup twice within a second, with no regard for continuity, all to spite him.
Another mushroom entered the zip bag involuntarily, its biological defenses lying shattered and broken before him, a sieged wall crumbling to dust under the onslaught of his eyes, a shield pierced by the—
Sasuke shut the bag with an audible zip. That was more than enough for one evening, enough to satisfy Orochimaru's demand in any case. He would bring the mushrooms back to his hideout, then train, and . . . well, train again. And if Orochimaru hadn't promised him tips for a new technique, a development for his lightning affinity that could call down heaven itself to smite his brother, he'd be long gone by now.
Sasuke fastened the bag to his belt, then shunshin'd onto the next best tree and sped to his hideout.
The cave offered enough room to train in peace, and at night the droplets of water falling from the stalactites onto the ground could be soothing.
He boiled himself water for tea. He would take a short moment of rest before beginning his training, which begged another question, an ongoing project of his: How to relax when you are not training? It was surprisingly difficult. But Kabuto had been clear that overtraining could have damaging consequences for his chakra circulatory system. He had given Sasuke a special tour through the experiment wards two years back. There, all the failed experiments slumbered that Orochimaru had produced by trying to create a shinobi capable of beneficial overtraining.
Not a pretty sight.
Still, Sasuke had disregarded it, of course. Until, a few months back, Orochimaru had noticed him overtax his body. The Snake Sannin had given him the same tour as Kabuto, then. Just that having Orochimaru as a tour guide was infinitely worse. To prove his credentials, Orochimaru had ended the journey through his facility by conducting a live-experiment on a lesser Genin, who trained herself to death because she was so devoted to him.
Hence the problem of finding something to do. Sasuke's eyes wandered to a bag near his bedroll. Books. It had been risky, of course, to buy them in Kinzoku while being a wanted criminal. It had been one of those rare impulse buys. Entering the store he already regretted it, but by then it was too late anyway so he just grabbed the next best books without looking, put them in his bag, and left without paying.
He shouldn't have done that, provoking being seen like that. It was exactly this kind of stuff that called shinobi onto a scene. He could just imagine how Naruto and Sakura would react if they'd found out about him. Konoha was the last thing he could use right now. The job was tedious enough already.
Sasuke pulled the bag to him and opened it. He might as well get a good look at what he stole.
The first was a picture book. The Adventures of Schmucky and Ducky—A Beautiful Friendship between Pig and Duck.
He incinerated that one on the spot.
The second book read: How to Convince your Partner in Twenty Easy Steps to—
Sasuke blew the growing pile of ash away, not wanting to risk his cave growing untidy.
With a sense of inevitable futility he reached for the last book in the bag. The cover was a bright green. Golden letters on it read: Icha Icha – Paradise of Delight: There Is Never 'Too Many Women'.
The book slipped out of his grip and fell to the ground. Right, of course he had picked trash like this. The one time he actually wanted to do something apart from training, fate saw it fit to mock him.
He glanced at the book. Trash. Yes. But trash read by a surprising amount of strong shinobi.
Not that he believed their success had anything to do with the book.
But, really, you could never be sure. And if men like the Hokage, Kakashi and Jiraiya of the Sannin read or even wrote it, perhaps . . .
No. Trash.
The cover grinned at him.
Then he heard steps outside the cave and, almost happy that the decision had been taken from him, he kicked the book into a dark corner.
Shortly after, Adder dragged herself into this part of the cave. She held her sides and wheezed. Even if he couldn't smell any fresh blood, she looked weak enough to fall down any second.
"I—" She coughed, then gathered herself into an upright posture, which crumbled the next second. "There is trouble, Sasuke-sama."
"Report."
"I have encountered hostiles. They were . . . too strong for me alone."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. When Orochimaru said that the one he chose could sufficiently hold her own that usually meant something. Perhaps a larger group of enemies? That would necessitate his involvement.
"How many?"
She stared at her feet. A bad feeling grew in his stomach at the sight. "Two," she mumbled. "I'm sorry, Sasuke-sama, but they were—"
He held up his hand.
Two? Elite Chūnin at least, then. Possibly Jōnin.
"When?" he asked.
"Last night."
"And you're only coming to me with this now?"
She winced. "I was injured," she said quietly. "I wouldn't have made it to you without dying on the way. I had to get to my hideout and—"
"Weak," he said. "Any village affiliation?" If one of the Five had taken to investigating this swamp confrontation was inevitable.
"None that I could see. They, well, they were wearing sleeping clothes since I attacked them at night."
He narrowed his eyes. "You attacked them?"
"I thought I would manage, they were only two. And Orochimaru-sama said that—"
"It doesn't matter what he said," said Sasuke slowly. "You should have observed them further."
"But . . . they looked young, inexperienced."
Sasuke gave her an indifferent look, and she averted her eyes. As if age had anything to do with skill. Itachi had . . . He shook his head. Not now. First he'd have to deal with this new problem.
"I'll gather more information on them come morning," he said. "How did they look?"
She brightened a bit, as if finally having found some way to be useful. "You'll find them easily, Sasuke-sama. They do stick out. One is completely blond, with spiky hair and whiskers; and the other has pink hair. They're a good combat unit but I don't think they're too good at noticing being observed. Too little subtlety."
Sasuke blinked. Then the feeling in his stomach solidified into a knot, each strand tied together by supreme annoyance and something else, something unidentifiable, unnamable, something he thought he'd killed a long while ago, two years to be precise.
They were here?
Why?
Not saying a word he walked over to his bedroll, picked up his sword, and fastened it to his belt. Then he rushed out of the cave without sparing Adder another look.
In Kinzoku, Jiraiya sat cross-legged on the floor of their room, pipe hanging loosely from his lips, a pair of glasses having slid down the bridge of his nose as he surveyed a piece of paper. Around him, many more pages lay scattered. Half a bottle of ink had been spilled across the tatami mats; ink dribbled from the table; the bottle, half-empty, lay haphazardly on the table, upturned, a black tower toppled to the ground by some unknown force. The room smelled of sake; a box of tissues stood close by. Two pieces of chocolate peeked out of tinfoil.
"Impressive," said Naruto, letting his gaze swivel through the chaos.
Sakura stood open-mouthed next to him. "What—"
"The process, my dear," said Jiraiya, sagely. He didn't avert his bespectacled eyes from the page in his hand. Then, with a satisfied hum, he slammed the page down, took a brush from behind his ear, half of which was smeared with black, dipped it into the puddle of ink on the floor, and wrote a last word on the page.
"I repeat," said Sakura, as if resetting the discussion would make things clearer. "What?"
"Artistic expression can be a bit messy at times," said Jiraiya. "A masterpiece sometimes needs . . . well, chaos, to really thrive. And my word, I can't remember the last time I've managed to get so many good things onto one page."
Naruto went over to the box of tissues. In moments like these he'd love to have a fire affinity.
"Found no women today?" he said, kicking the box into the farthest corner.
Jiraiya looked affronted. "I didn't go looking. Today was just my art and me."
"Liar," said Naruto. "As if that's . . . why am I even bothering?"
"It's . . . " Sakura trailed off. "It's for your writing? All this?" Then she grew rigid, as if memory had finally dragged the kind of literature Jiraiya wrote into the floodlight of awareness. Her eyes grew cold.
"In this room?" she asked, glaring at the tissues, then directing her fury at the culprit.
Jiraiya took off the glasses and put them on the table. "I assure you, I have no idea what you mean. I worked on my book."
That won't work, thought Naruto. Not with Sakura at least.
"Disgusting," said Sakura, winding up. "Absolutely—"
"Haruno Sakura!" Jiraiya boomed.
Sakura snapped to attention, unwilling, but even Naruto felt the instinct to salute at such a tone.
"I will not have you question my recreational activities," Jiraiya went on. "Report your findings, Chūnin."
Experience enabled Naruto to snap out of the spell but Sakura had spent little time with Jiraiya so far. Naruto wouldn't be surprised if a large part of her still held tight to the way legends described him. Aside from Tsunade herself you likely couldn't find a higher authority that appealed so much to her authority-oriented mind.
All mistakes forgotten, Sakura began reporting what had happened in Seho. Professionalism personified, voice carefully modulated, she stood straight like an oak, her words precise. A textbook made flesh.
The more she talked, the more Jiraiya eased back into a relaxed position. Then he smuggled a few hand signs past her toward Naruto, which amounted to: Pay Attention, Boy. That's How You Do It.
Naruto rolled his eyes. Layers upon layers. Were Sakura, despite all cautiousness, to notice the hand signs, Jiraiya could still say that he referred to the act of reporting itself.
Naruto signed back: Not So Brave With Grandma Tsunade.
If you could sign ellipses he'd have added them for good measure.
The crazy thing was that Naruto knew Jiraiya listened while signing, that he paid minute attention to Sakura's report, that somewhere in that demented mind the next passage of his novel was being written at the same time as the whole situation on Danube Island was being processed.
Ultimately, that were the Sannin for you: human ability surpassed in the places you least expected it.
As Sakura finished her report, Jiraiya ended his side-conversation with Naruto.
"That's about what I expected," he said. "I followed the mercenaries up to the mountains. They had some frisky animals, too. But you know what really stood out? They had surprised miners. And the last time I checked, Danube had no mines. Of course, the mercenaries were just in time to help. Always so reliable, those guys."
"Not really all that inconspicuous, is it?" said Sakura. "I would have expected a scheme by Orochimaru to be more . . . elaborate? The invasion during the exams was much more sophisticated."
Jiraiya answered but Naruto was deaf to his reply. He had squeezed his eyes shut at the word invasion. Pictures flickered through his mind, the image of a pyre, a photo with a blurred out person, zigzagging emotions too fast to understand that were gone as quickly as they came.
Thinking about Jiji wouldn't do him any good now. That was long ago. Two years in which he'd grown out of tears and rotten moods that always ambushed him when he least expected them.
None of that mattered now. They had a swamp to investigate. Sasuke was close too, and these days animals spent their time brutalizing villages. More than enough to keep you occupied in any case.
Naruto opened his eyes again.
" . . . you should go," said Jiraiya. His tone was insistent.
"But we're on a mission!" said Sakura. "Now that we know there's real trouble, we can't just—"
"I say it's okay, so it's okay."
Naruto shook off the remembrance of the late Hokage. "What's he tryin' to make you do?" he asked.
"Weren't you listening?" asked Sakura.
"Sorry, mind's been wandering."
"He wants us to go to the festival," she said, "while we're on a mission."
That wiped the bad mood away in an instant. Naruto wheeled to Jiraiya. "Really? I didn't think you'd remember!"
Jiraiya scoffed. "So that's what you think of me, is it? I promised the next festival we come by. Of course I hold my word!" He flipped open a fan and jumped to his feet, already halfway through his introductory pose. "Nothing else from Jiraiya of the Sannin, Most Suave—"
"Is it really okay during a mission?"
"It is," said Jiraiya. Then, to add weight to his words, he went on, "I'm a Sannin," as if that alone gave him all the credibility he could ever need.
And Sakura was probably the only person he knew who'd take that at face value. And he knew that Jiraiya knew, which meant he'd hear that sentence a lot more often—precisely whenever Jiraiya tried to convince her to do something that went against her rigid views.
"Okay . . . " said Sakura. She was still not fully convinced, but she seemed to warm up to the idea. And when Naruto noticed her glancing at her backpack, as if to check if she had the necessary clothes, then her eyes flitting in a strange kind of panic, because obviously she didn't, he knew that things would be fine that night.
Naruto blinked. Clothes. Right. Mechanically his head turned to his own backpack. Did he have something to wear? Something proper? He glanced at Sakura. Two years ago his training outfit would've been enough, but things changed. He wasn't quite sure how, but they had changed, that much he knew.
Before he could lose himself to this strange panic though, Jiraiya cleared his throat.
With a knowing grin, he held up two scrolls: one orange, the other pink.
"Here you go, you two," he said, pushing the scrolls into their hands. "Now you make sure to have enough fun for three people while I make sure nothing happens. And don't you come back too soon. Staying all cooped up is not good for young people. You're supposed to do wild stuff. Get smashed, have fun, and all that jazz."
The barely suppressed giggle really wasn't appropriate.
Sakura frowned, but surprisingly said nothing. Neither about the allusion to their 'frolicking' as Jiraiya would call it—what a damn strange word—nor to the drinking part. But Naruto was glad for small favors. They didn't come about often in his life.
"How did he get my measurements?"
A healthy dose of confusion accompanied Sakura's question. Naruto, feeling strangely electrified in his chest, chose not to consider the question too deeply himself. He had an inkling anyway, just not the inclination to follow up on it.
"No clue," he said. Then, having practiced the sentence in his mind for five minutes now, went on to his bravest adventure yet. "You're looking good."
Jackpot. No stammer. He felt a bit hot around the nose but that was fine. He might have looked at his feet if he were shier, but he found looking at Sakura far more interesting. The white kimono, the rose petal motif, and the girl inside won out big time over any embarrassment.
She beamed at him. "You too," she said, before turning round and busying herself with her purse.
Naruto went over to the mirror that hung at the wall, engaging in the soothing practice of mentally talking to his whiskers, which he called by the numbers one to six. He had a secret bet with himself that he'd be Hokage before he ran out of whiskers to count faces on the mountain with—which left him with one to go. He stared at his whiskers, thinking, Boy, this'll be somethin'. Don't you screw this up, Uzumaki. You've got a good night and Sakura and a festival and—
"I'm ready," Sakura called.
"Comin'," said Naruto.
They shared a smile, then went down the stairs of the inn. There they met Jiraiya, who sat at the counter with the innkeep, playing cards and chugging cups. Naruto waved at him, then held the door open for Sakura and went outside.
Festivals were supposed to be fun. They had food and booze, music and entertainment. You could play games and chat, and there were large bonfires with dancing people, booze again, and for good measure, booze a third time. Taking part in a good festival you forgot all about the clock and just partied it up until sunrise. Time stopped mattering.
Sadly, time did not stop mattering for Naruto; it just changed its system. Instead of hours, he measured time in squids now. To be precise, squids on sticks.
The fact of the matter was that Kinzoku's Yearly Festival had needed only two squids on sticks that he ate before it turned sour—and he was a fast eater.
The good part: it had nothing to do with Sakura, or him fumbling it with her.
The bad part: while the crier from the stall nearby shouted for more people to challenge Bono, Strongest Arm Wrestler Alive, Naruto had his nose full with the obscene stench of another stall owner who'd taken a bath in garlic, his apron full of grease spots.
"That's not your monkey!" Naruto shouted, his patience—which at the best of times was threadbare—running out.
"It's yours then?" the man said. "I'd like to see some paperwork, boy."
Having nothing like that, Naruto looked at the stall, feeling frustration well up. The stall was a large miniature arena, encased with glass. In the arena, a familiar monkey currently held his own against a duo of scorpions, wearing a strange leather helmet and flailing around with a wooden sword. Strangest of all, his movements looked calculated. Panicked but somewhat planned.
As one scorpion sidled up, stinger raised, the monkey sallied forward. He swung the wooden sword in a wide arc, scaring the poisonous beast off, then used crude footwork to back off again.
"I don't have papers," Naruto ground out.
"Then stop pestering me," the owner said, before turning around and shouting, "Come here, now! Watch this most intelligent fighter fare against the devilments of Kusa! Nowhere else will you find such a monumental battle as this! Come now! Visit and be delighted! The most cunning monkey you'll ever witness awaits!"
Agitated by the voice, the monkey looked sideways. When it spied Naruto a screech left its mouth with such force, even Bono The Arm Wrestler twitched.
At that moment, a group of mercenaries who had played rock-paper-scissor to find out who'd wrestle Bono looked over to the stall.
The hairiest of the bunch came over. His chest was broad like a doorframe, each hair fighting its way through chainmail and leather armor.
"Problems here, chief?" he said, glaring at Naruto. His companions followed, though they kept their eyes glued to Sakura.
The stall owner, with the assurance of someone who knew the bigger bully was on his side, puffed up his chest. "Boy here said it's not my monkey, making a fuss and all and scaring away me customers."
"That true?" said the mercenary.
Patience, thought Naruto. They've no idea, Uzumaki, so don't you go and clobber them now. Just explain it to them in a nice and polite way; Sakura is watching.
"I've seen that monkey before and—"
The monkey screeched again, and the mercenary slugged drunkenly against the glass arena.
"Silent! Ruddy thing . . . "
In the eyes of the monkey, Naruto saw desperation. The monkey had by now clubbed the scorpions to death but the owner held another cage ready, filled with the hisses of a bunch of snakes.
That did it. Blast it all to hell, but there was a limit to patience and staying low.
A red point of anger in his chest, Naruto shot the mercenaries and the stall owner a glare. He was about to roll up his kimono sleeves, when Sakura took his arm.
"He's just a bit drunk, gentlemen," she said, smiling at the men. "Please excuse us, he needs sobering up."
The hairy mercenary let out a guffaw. "Better get the little shite under control, missy. People who can't hold their liquor have no business drinkin'!"
"Of course, I'll tell him," she said, giving Naruto a clear message through her eyes that she would murder him if he made a scene.
"And if you're bored with such a lout, why not come back'n find us? Better company for sure."
"For sure," said Sakura, bowing lightly. "I'll consider it."
Then she dragged Naruto around a fence and into an alley.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?" she said, poking a finger into his chest.
Naruto glared at the wall. If he had the ability to glare through it, his gaze would've speared some gullets on the other side of the house.
"You don't need to glare at the wall like that," said Sakura. "Calm down, Naruto. It's over now. I can't believe you almost blew our cover like this!"
Naruto frowned. "They deserve a good beatin'," he said. "Doing stuff like that and betting on it. I would've messed them up."
Then he remembered the reason for his anger in the first place. His eyes widened. He was almost around the corner when Sakura pulled him back with some effort.
"What now?" she grunted, dragging him back into the alley.
"Didn't you notice? That monkey's got to fight some snake next, I heard it. That thing'll kill him for sure! We got to help!"
At which point Sakura rolled her eyes and pinned him in place with a stare that pretty much amounted to: Are you an idiot or what?
An uncomfortable expression that she gave voice to a second later. "You're a shinobi, Naruto. Are you telling me the only way you can save that monkey is by busting their jaws?"
It took about five seconds to understand. Then he felt his ears heat up.
Right. There were, perhaps, for the not-immediately-violence-inclined other options to solve problems.
"Got it," he said, scratching the back of his neck, feeling his cheeks burns.
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Then go and save him, or he'll die for real. I'll wait here for you."
"Will do," he said.
"And don't go about breaking jaws, please."
Naruto didn't comment. At that point in time he felt it safer to just get the monkey away from his current company and then forget this whole episode.
A minute later he was back in the alley, the monkey clinging to his shoulder as if he had found a long-lost family member. This time Naruto had planned ahead. In the cage currently fought a monkey-clone with the brawling knowledge of a full-blood shinobi. To top it off, he had left some henged clones nearby who'd place some bets and fleece that damn owner.
He rubbed his hands. Better odds you got in no other cage fight.
Naruto pried the overly thankful monkey from his shoulder. "'s all good now, boy. Settle down."
The monkey looked around anxiously. For a second he stopped his panic to appreciate Sakura's kimono, then he resumed with flitting eyes to look for danger.
Naruto crouched so they were on eye level. "They won't do anything to you now."
In that moment, despite their earlier struggles against each other, a bond of kinship formed. All his life Naruto knew people had either feared and despised him, or—even worse—they had regarded him with scientific curiosity, like you'd regard a particular well-shined sword. Seeing how those old crones who'd always advised Jiji had observed him felt way worse than the actual fear he met from the villagers. Cruel as it was, he could understand the fear. It was silly and he'd rather they not run away screaming about demons in their minds, but he could understand it. He feared lots of things himself that weren't any dangerous. Ghosts being one of them.
And the monkey? That fellow had been objectified just the same then, kitted out with armor and weapons to turn a good profit.
Sakura saw the intense gaze between them and snorted. "I'll leave you two to it," she said, walking over to a barrel of rainwater and checking out her face, adjusting her hair, and so on—all the strange things women do from time to time.
Naruto nodded absentmindedly. Having found kinship, he reached out his fist. Tentatively, the monkey bumped his own against it.
"I'm Naruto."
Naruto took a stick and wrote his name in the dirt.
The monkey looked first at him, then at the name. He took the stick and scrawled symbols into the earth as well.
Naruto raised an eyebrow, then shrugged.
"Fip, eh? Good name." After a few more seconds of silence, Naruto rose from his crouch. "That's that. Keep calm and don't let 'em catch you again, 'kay?"
Fip made a questioning noise.
"Nah, you can't come with me, boy."
Fip jumped in place twice.
Naruto sighed, then gestured to his shoulder. Fip followed it up and leaned in. Naruto whispered, "Listen, I don't know how much you actually understand, but I want to have a good time with Sakura"—he subtly nodded at her back—"and I can't do that with you in the mix. So be a pal and give me some space, will you?"
A moment long Naruto feared that old resentments would bubble up. Fip swayed on his shoulder, head swinging from Naruto to Sakura and back. Then, as if heaving a monumental sigh, Fip uttered a sad noise, nodded, and climbed down along the back to the ground.
"Oook?"
"I'm sure we'll see each other again," said Naruto. "Come find me if you've got the time, Fip."
"Oook."
After Fip left them, Naruto was alone with Sakura again. This time though, there was some awkwardness to it. They stood in the dark alley, and Naruto couldn't help but think this evening went entirely different than he'd planned.
"So . . . want to go back to the festival?" Naruto asked, trying to shove away the silence.
Sakura looked undecided. "Not really," she said. "I don't like all those mercenaries around me."
Silence settled on them again.
Naruto tapped his foot. Do something, he thought. Say something. Just get this silence over with!
His mouth opened—all checks and balances of the planning-ahead part of his mind masterfully circumvented. "We could get hammered."
The syllable –ed barely left his lips when he already winced. Not a good idea with Sakura. She was so damn by the book, convincing her to get sloshed would—
"You think that'd be alright?"
Naruto's eyes widened. A trick? A trap? Some womanly game of testing boundaries? Any of those things Jiraiya talked about now and then? But Sakura, biting her lip, made the genuine impression of warring with herself about the idea.
How—
Naruto's mind screeched to a halt. Then it resumed, working its way towards creating a gut feeling with increasing speed. Could it be? Could Grandma Tsunade actually have made such an impression on her that she thought drinking was okay? Was it possible that Jiraiya had added to it? Could she, in other words, see it as a sign of some sort that powerful people most often crushed skulls during daytime and emptied bars once the moon came up?
So many possibilities. He practically saw it before him, a scene where Tsunade and Sakura lay on the roof of a building at night. They would discuss a treatise on the effect of chakra on bones. Tsunade would look up at the star-specked night-sky and say, 'Don't you think it looks like a giant glass of dark liquor, Sakura, each star a different ice cube?' The profundity of it all then astounding and amazing Sakura into dazed silence and a compliant nod, because who could ever disagree to a statement like that? Tsunade would get out the sake afterwards and go on, saying, 'And so we try to create our own cosmos in our cups, to assure ourselves that we're strong and powerful.'
Naruto abandoned the image before it could break him.
"So . . . you're up for it?" he ventured.
Sakura shrugged helplessly, but there was a spark of interest in her eyes. "I never drank before," she said. "But I've always seen sensei do it, and even Kakashi. And Jiraiya does it too! So maybe . . ."
"The old pervert's sloshed all the time," said Naruto. Then, as if telling of an unrelated detail, he added, "He's about the strongest shinobi I've ever seen. Makes it look so easy sometimes, is what I always say."
No one ever said Uzumaki Naruto came onto this world without cunning. In fact, most people who met his ire would usually agree that he should have been named Cunnumaki, not Uzumaki—but that was such a bad pun, no one ever dared to use it instead of brat or demon—both perfectly acceptable slurs—because such a linguistic atrocity would just make them that much bigger of a target for his pranks.
Liquor won the battle. Sakura nodded, resolve shining in her eyes.
"Let's do it," she said, growing more confident. "I really want to try it out."
"I think I know where to get some," said Naruto. "And then we'll find a nice spot, and look at the sky or somethin' . . . "
"And make up stories about the stars!" she added, growing more excited.
"And talk 'bout life!"
"And life, yes!"
And so the next chapter of the evening began, and in Naruto's mind, a mind that surprisingly hadn't yet come into the enjoyment of a good buzz in its life either, it couldn't have started on a finer note.
Things were finally looking up for him.
An hour and several bottles later—because once you started, stopping was always so difficult—they lay in the garden of Kinzoku's mayor, looking up at the moon.
Naruto felt blades of grass tickle his feet. His sandals lay somewhere near the pond. About him was the song of night birds, the tapping of a bamboo pipe on stone, and far off the noise of the festival.
Sakura took a swig from their last bottle, then put her head on his stomach. Sake beaded off her chin. She threw the empty bottle with a laugh into the pond where it surely hit some koi and maimed it.
Then she turned laboriously until she lay half on him, mumbling, "'Shh good. Ishh very good!"
Naruto blinked, then giggled. Either she had no stamina at all, or the Kyuubi had helped him along: no matter the actual truth, he felt drunk, goodly so, and she was so smashed he'd be surprised if she remembered anything at all come morning.
His manly giggle made her head move up and down on his stomach, which made her grumble, and him in turn laugh harder.
Wheezing, he pressed out, "Lookin' mighty fine, Sakura," and reached out, originally to steady her head, but then his hand wandered to her hair and he brushed a strand of it away and behind her ear.
Things were so much easier this time around than back in their room. In a distant part of his mind the words 'Liquid Courage' flickered up and down. He ignored them though, because the why wasn't nearly half as interesting as the how. Sakura looked at him right then, with hooded eyes that excited him at the same time as they gave him chills.
With drunken swagger, Sakura took hold of his shoulders and dragged her body fully on his, bringing their faces closer together. As their lips met, Naruto had a last thought of, Boy, Uzumaki, you've gone and done it now.
Then he let instincts take over and did what he'd dreamed of quite a lot in the past, pulling her closer, smelling her perfume, his hands starting their journey over her body, trailing along her arms, along her shoulders, her back, further down, the kimono thin between them but already sliding down her body and making space, and her tongue and the way she breathed his name in a way that sounded so unlike the Sakura he knew. And he was glad to be able to cherish this, to take it all in: the way she had nestled her thighs around his right leg, even with clothing still between them, and the shape of her neck, and each tiny hair on her arms and nape—
And in that maelstrom of sensations, too many to understand, one annoying thought suddenly jumped at him and dug in. A lone soldier in a trench about to be overrun, even as her delicate fingers moved along his chest now, pushing the kimono out of the way and moving downdowndown . . .
He understood what went on. He cherished it. He was fully present because apparently liquor wasn't much of a problem to a Jinchūriki.
But Sakura? She was so drunk out of her mind, did she even know what she was doing? Did it actually matter to her in that state?
Her fingers kept up their journey. Damn it felt just too good.
Sakura breathed a kiss on his chest, a wave of alcoholic smell wafting up from it.
He wanted to enjoy this. He wanted her to enjoy this. He wanted all this to be a 'Hell yes, I wouldn't have it any other way' from her when she was fully there; otherwise, what was the point?
And the stronger that thought grew, the more he felt himself sober up.
"Shit . . . " he said eventually, summing up his feelings on the matter. Then, before Sakura could go on any further, he substituted himself the hell away.
Sasuke couldn't quite believe his eyes. He crouched on the roof of the mayor's house. Below, Naruto just stormed off after what looked like the first paragraphs of a smutty novel. But, strangeness aside, this confirmed that they were here. Konoha had come. And it had brought the only two people that still managed to annoy him by their sheer presence.
For a second he wondered if he should jump down and get rid of Sakura. But no, he had no desire to slit her throat. She was a pest, not an enemy per se.
He could abduct her though.
Down below, Sakura drunkenly rolled through the garden, giggling at the stars.
No abduction, then. That would be more stress than Sasuke was willing to endure. This was, in any case, Orochimaru's operation. He wouldn't do more work for this than necessary. Just a few more days of mushroom gathering and he'd be done with this chore and could get back to learning devastating techniques.
Itachi wouldn't know what hit him.
Sasuke eased his hand away from the grip of his sword, turned, and came face to face with a small, ugly monkey that pointed an accusing finger at him.
"Oook!"
Sasuke blinked.
No. He wasn't going to bother with this; whatever this actually was. With a practiced seal he shunshin'd away. He'd find out where the two of them lived and then he'd leave and make a plan for what to do with them.
Fip felt as if reality had been severely distorted. Other monkeys weren't supposed to burst into a pile of leaves. However, he'd observed Naruto and Sakura doing some strange shit as well, so who knew what the porcupine-haired monkey was capable of?
He looked down into the courtyard where Sakura was. Beautiful and strange and exotic, also clearly the chosen mate of his savior. It tore at him, but no, he would not get between them. There was an honor code he'd started to develop over the past days, and he sensed on some primal level that keeping to it was important.
He hadn't much bothered with things like debt and pride before. He couldn't remember a time when it had been vital to him to survive. All this thinking and not just acting was actually getting somewhat strange; and he felt also beset at times by a surge of unknown emotions inside him, a feeling that he could not fully grasp. As if the walls around him closed in. Not primal fear that came when the walls were about to crush you. Something else. More like the noise walls closing in made, even when they were still a good distance away.
He would get clammy paws and have vague ideas of who he ought to be, how there must be some kind of greatness inside him waiting to be called on. Then came the crushing realization of who he actually was, and that contrast made the clammy paws clammier by a tenfold.
He had thought about this often now, since leaving the swamp. And sometimes he thought he even got somewhere, but that too wasn't quite the answer. He just knew, somewhere in his mind, that while it was normal to exist, it was decidedly not normal to constantly contemplate your existence.
But this mystery had to be solved later. For whichever reason, right now he valued pride and debts and honor, though he had no real name for them. And so Fip knew that his debt to the Naruto was not yet paid in full. He had defended the mate; now he had to defend the other part of that equation as well.
Purpose clear in his awakening mind, he knuckled his way across the rooftops, looking for clues to the whereabouts of the porcupine monkey. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled. He felt himself tense at the thought.
When Fip found Naruto, it could not have been much later.
Down in the streets, Naruto stood despondently before the large white-haired monkey. They stood under the light of a lantern, and while Fip could not understand what their words meant, he still heard them.
" . . . don't want to talk 'bout it," said Naruto.
"Your call. Might help to get it off your chest though. If nothing else, whatever happened can probably be made better with a few drinks for tonight."
Naruto's expression soured.
"I don't think so."
"That bad, huh?"
In the back of his mind, Fip felt something spark. The thought of his greatness, of what he ought to be, returned. He looked about. No threat yet, and The Great White One looked capable.
So . . . what would a worthy pursuit be?
In the minutes that followed, Fip concentrated on the strange distortions of air their mouths made, matching them to their expressions and gestures.
Sasuke had found the inn but no Naruto inside. A strange curiosity, one he thought he had expelled flickered into existence. It made him search for the idiot. At least to see him once. To get a good grasp of how they had changed in different directions. To see what idiocy he had left for the benefit of power, he told himself with as much conviction as he could muster.
Rooftops flew by. The moon hung shining in the air, like a gigantic 'Screw You' to the darkness. The air was getting chilly now, whatever that meant for an island bordering on the tropical.
Sasuke was careful on his journey. Even if Naruto and Sakura were Chūnin by now, Konoha did not send two-man teams. Somewhere lurked a third teammate. Hinata might be the worst: her Byakugan could actually spot him on the roofs, despite all his cautiousness.
But the others? They weren't a problem. The first year of his training under Orochimaru had featured heavily everything you needed to know to become untrackable by scent, by chakra, by almost anything.
Sasuke was proud of those skills. He wanted Itachi to see him coming, of course, but if that weren't the case, he was confident he could sneak up on him, or at least not be spotted miles in advance.
One rooftop farther, he stopped and hid himself in the shadow of a water tank.
"Don't think talkin' helped at all," he heard Naruto's voice. "If anything I think I feel worse now."
Oh? Who was he talking to? The chakra was . . . miniscule. A civilian? Sasuke edged around the tank and peered down into the street.
Without wasting even a millisecond, he pulled back behind the tank, feeling his pulse explode in his throat.
Jiraiya of the Sannin? Goddamn Jiraiya of all people?
But Sasuke was confident in his hiding skills still. He could get out of this; he just had to stay still so as not to upset the status quo and have something unpredictable happen, as it tended to when Naruto was involved.
"I think it's better if you go back to the inn and get some sleep. Tomorrow the world will look a lot better."
" . . . doubt it."
"Trust me. I know this feeling, and I know it'll go away."
"If you say so . . . "
"I do. Now go get some shut-eye. I'll collect her on my way back."
Sasuke's heart beat more easily. They'd go now, both of them, and then he could get the hell away from Kinzoku.
Sasuke heard Naruto's steps recede into the city. He could allow himself to breathe soon.
"Oook!"
Senses honed through brutal training and a more than respectable intellect told Sasuke within the blink of an eye that he had to get away from that water tank, now.
He blasted off the roof, just as Jiraiya's fist smashed the tank he hid behind into the next street. Mid-jump, Sasuke made himself smaller, pulled his head in.
Jiraiya's foot slashed the air above him with enough force for the displaced wind to send Sasuke careening off course.
Sasuke tumbled to the floor, found balance, replaced himself anticipating another attack, then crashed headfirst into Jiraiya's broad chest.
Sasuke staggered back, then ducked. He swiped at the legs before him with his feet. Jiraiya stepped forward. When their legs met it felt as if Sasuke had smashed his shin against a wall of corrugated iron.
His Sharingan flared into existence.
All pretense of civilian chakra gone now, Jiraiya lit up in a monstrous blue that made Sasuke wince as he looked at it, tracing within a second the gigantic coils that wound through the whole body.
He jerked his arms up just in time to block most of the punch that sent him skidding across the next rooftop.
His arms shuddered uncontrollably.
And Orochimaru considered this his inferior? He held himself to be the stronger one? The amount of active chakra circulating within Jiraiya's body was massive, larger and more powerful than anything he'd seen from the Snake Sannin himself, hell, even from Itachi.
The realization brought a cold shiver to his neck.
He had to get away. He had to—
He felt Jiraiya's presence behind him, turned to block, to dodge, to do anything in order to survive. Mid-turn Jiraiya lightly tapped his shoulder, shoving him off the roof. Sasuke bounced on the street, rolled to his feet, and shunshin'd. Once, twice, the chakra in his body melting in his coils, being used again and again, propelling him forward, away from that monster, toward a place where he could process all this.
Shunshin. His hand cramped. His body stood in flames as the Cursed Seal activated. Wings shot out of his back.
The swamp. Too far still but he was out of Kinzoku. Soon. Just . . . once . . . more.
A pair of hands stopped his escape mid-shunshin. Within one motion they ripped out his wings. Before Sasuke even felt the pain, one hand gripped his collar and threw him to the ground, somewhere in the wild, miles away from Kinzoku.
When Sasuke recovered from the vertigo and vision came back into focus, he lay on the ground in a heap. His back was bloody. Spasms of pain shot up his spine, gathering around his neck.
Jiraiya of the Sannin sat on an upturned log before him, legs crossed at the ankles, looking expectantly.
And there'd been but one moment in his life so far when Sasuke had felt greater fear; and that realization alone made his skin crawl inwards.
Back in the streets of Kinzoku, Fip brushed off dirt from his hairy shoulder, considering a job well done. His newfound brother hadn't been stalked, and that weird spiky-haired monkey had been chased away by the strong, white one.
Fip felt in the depth of his being that his duty was done for that evening. More you really couldn't expect from any monkey.
He began to move away when something crunched under his paws. Carefully he retracted his arm. A plastic zip bag lay on the street, some weird, black crackers with red dots inside it.
He wanted to shrug. This had nothing to do with him. But he couldn't bring himself to leave it there after all. Maybe it belonged to Naruto?
Usually such considerations didn't take place in Fip's mind. You could say that, until a month ago or so, no considerations at all had taken place that went beyond his primal instincts. Now however he found himself faced with the impulse to take up the bag.
He didn't particularly like this sensation inside him. This kind of weight that smelled like it would keep you awake at night until you did something you really didn't feel like doing.
With great reluctance he picked up the bag and began his way toward the inn where he hoped to find Naruto.
A monkey's job, it appeared, was never done.
Back in the wilds outside Kinzoku, Jiraiya contemplated what to do with Uchiha Sasuke. He was, in general, a fan of chaining up traitors, especially those that hurt his godson. In the kindest scenario—which excluded Naruto—he'd roast the Uchiha slowly, literally, and then feed him to some creature. Irony bonus points if that creature were one of Orochimaru's failed experiments.
However . . .
And boy did he hate how the word however always put a stop to all the fun.
Naruto, praised be his white and shining soul, would never forgive him if he killed the Uchiha.
Likewise, and that was the real rub, Jiraiya bringing back Sasuke wouldn't change much either. The team dynamic was fundamentally flawed until that specific moment in which Naruto clubbed sense into Sasuke's head—whenever that was. If Jiraiya brought him back, the next-best chance, Sasuke would flee again.
Normally that wouldn't pose much of a problem. Again: callous and not as peace-loving as he usually was, but if a traitor annoyed you too much simply killing them wasn't an option to be discarded.
The real problem, then, was that he wanted Naruto to be the one that captured Sasuke, silly as the notion was.
Of course it'd be worth a lot for Konoha if he just took this chance and rolled with it. Indeed, that'd be the appropriate action.
But a much louder part of Jiraiya screamed that this was his godson's job. That he himself would have been frustrated with anyone but him and Tsunade bringing back Orochimaru. That Orochimaru coming back and then leaving again just as quickly would have only hurt more; so in his mind they just always had to have that one battle where they slugged their souls out and became friends again.
Well, speaking in analogy of course. Orochimaru had forced him to give up on that dream a long while ago.
For Naruto it was still fresh. And it pushed all the idealist buttons that could be reached for in Jiraiya's heart.
However.
Shinobi endured. That was the sad reality of their profession. And sometimes that meant to experience how your heart turned to stone because you had to cripple it yourself for the good of the village.
He couldn't in good conscience leave the Uchiha for Naruto when he got him here before him, dead to rights.
With sixty something years, you were expected to keep your emotions in check. The restrictions of being an adult . . .
Jiraiya sighed. Part of him enjoyed making the Uchiha squirm under his stare, letting him feel the full brunt of their disparate strengths.
In addition to the pain he must feel from his back of course. The gray wings lay in the grass nearby, twitching grotesquely.
"You're a shit, you know that, don't you?"
Sasuke kept silent. His eyes flitted around. Then they focused back on him, Sharingan spinning into action.
Jiraiya felt the attempt of a Genjutsu. The moment the web of illusions encountered the seal Jiraiya hid under his bracers, it slid off like rain on a window pane.
Jiraiya smiled mirthlessly. "That won't work, Uchiha. Fancy eyes don't do the trick with me."
Sasuke shrugged and deactivated his Sharingan. "I won't have to deal with you much longer anyway."
"Oh? Confident in your escape, are you?"
"Do you really think Orochimaru would send me here on my own, with you on the island as well?"
"You don't really think I'll get scared by his minions . . . "
"Not by them."
Jiraiya leaned closer, grinning like a wolf. "If you think Orochimaru will stop me, you've got another thing coming, boy. The last tussle we had I was a bit under the weather, so you can bet your ass that I want a rematch. Let him come, that won't get you off the hook."
"It's not you he's here for," said Sasuke, returning the grin with cold, arrogant precision. "You're slow for a Sannin, aren't you?"
Jiraiya's eyes widened. He scanned the Uchiha for falsehood and found none.
How could he have been that—
Every rational thought in his mind was overridden by the sudden concern for Naruto. The Uchiha became a lesser priority. First and foremost he had to secure his godson.
Knowing that Sasuke would delay him by at least a minute if he tried to subdue him, Jiraiya pushed himself away from the ground with enough force to leave craters in his wake.
A minute meant everything once Orochimaru threw himself into the mix.
The speed Sannin were capable to travel at when they really tried could rend the flesh off normal people. Trees did not fly by, they were non-existent in their shape: nothing but a mesh of green and brown colors thrown together in one single blur.
Wind whipped at Jiraiya's hair; using Hari Jizou, he flattened it against his spine.
Resistance threatened to sheer off his skin; pushing more chakra through the surface of his body, he hardened it and sped up once more.
Wildlife was usually noisy. At this speed Jiraiya heard nothing save the boom that occurred every time his sandal hit the ground.
Gritting his teeth he pumped more chakra into his legs, hardening the bones of his feet to withstand the pressure as he took it up another notch.
Kinzoku was on the horizon. Then it was there before him.
One leap catapulted him over the wall onto a roof squat in the middle of the city. Mid-fly he dialed down the chakra and went on without destroying the houses. His senses strained in the darkness as he rushed to the inn.
The festival was still going on but slowly winding down. He heard nothing like the sibilant noises of snakes though, or the explosions of an attack, or the screams of dying people. He did not smell anything unusual either. When he expanded his awareness to encompass every source of chakra in Kinzoku, nothing unusual stood out.
Naruto's chakra was normal. Well, as normal as one could call it. His reserves were so large the signal usually covered an area the size of a several housing blocks. Jiraiya harbored the suspicion that this had been the reason why Naruto had often managed to evade his capturers back in his childhood. They'd always just known the general area. His exact position couldn't be pinpointed with accuracy in that massive sea of chakra. It was such a counter-intuitive hiding method that it had worked splendidly. Naruto basically hid himself inside himself. There, too, slumbered a philosophical problem to think about, though Jiraiya lacked the time for it.
In an afterthought he checked Sakura's chakra too and found it stable and not agitated as well.
That didn't have to mean anything though. A Sannin was above petty modes of concealment that could be found out with a rough surface check.
With a last leap he cleared the distance to the inn, went up the stairs, and pushed away the linen of their improvised door.
Then he sagged against the doorframe, relieved.
Naruto snored, then wildly hit at air, turned and mumbled something intelligible. Sakura smiled into her pillow, a treacherous trail of saliva trailing along her lips.
Both slept. And try as he might, he found no sign of Orochimaru anywhere.
The adrenalin in his body gave way to the realization that the Uchiha had played him. Even though no sixteen year-old should be able to fool a spymaster with that much experience. Yet it happened. And strangest of all, Jiraiya was sure that Sasuke had spoken the truth back then. He would have sniffed out any lie that came over the boy's lips.
So . . . How?
His heart beating a violent rhythm in his chest, Sasuke staggered back into the cave. Adder was still waiting on him. He held fast to the wall, not trusting his legs to carry him all the way after that encounter. He left a bloody trail as well.
"Sasuke-sama, you're back!" Adder rose from her meditative pose.
Sasuke struggled over to his bed. He needed to sit down. Just for a second; not long enough to show weakness. Just . . . to get things processed. Adder kept talking but he ignored her. In his mind, the short chase from Kinzoku replayed over and over again, each try to analyze it thwarted by the voice that shouted 'He got you without breaking a sweat in a manner of minutes.'
Sitting down he found that his legs slowly stopped shaking.
He had escaped. And he had Orochimaru to thank for it. If the Snake Sannin hadn't gone after Naruto when he did, then—
Sasuke blinked. Why would Orochimaru go after Naruto? He found playing with the Kyuubi amusing, surely, but he had never made any comment at all that he was interested in Naruto on a deeper level.
The tingling of adrenalin across his body dispersed. His thoughts slowed in tandem, clearing up the mess of primal fear that Jiraiya had left him in.
Sasuke narrowed his eyes. Then, oh so slowly, his lips pulled up into a grin.
Inside his memories he found the telltale sign of a Sharingan-induced Genjutsu, with a chakra signature that couldn't be more familiar if it tried.
He shattered the illusion with a thought. Memories rushed back, of remembering that the one thing he knew for sure about Jiraiya was a fierce love for Naruto, of hedging the idea to put an illusion on himself in order to make the bluff convincing, of layering a weak illusion on Jiraiya to distract him from the real aim of activating his Sharingan.
His grin transformed into an honest smile. "That won't work, Uchiha," he muttered at the floor. "'Fancy eyes don't do the trick with me' huh?"
"Sasuke-sama?"
The smile died, replaced by flat lips drawn in a scowl. He rose from the bed.
"You're not to attack those two again," he said. "Keep as far away as possible until you get new orders. We need Orochimaru."
"Orochimaru-sama? For Chūnin? Surely—"
"They've got Jiraiya with them."
Adder paled, which had to take real effort because her complexion was already snow white.
"Are you—"
He shot her a glare that silenced her in an instant.
"Go," he said. "And stay away from them."
Adder bowed, then left the cave.
Alone again, Sasuke stared at the wall. He had tricked Jiraiya—if there was one positive take-away from the day it was this. But the difference between them had been so massive, it defied belief. How could there be, after two years under Orochimaru, such a gap in strength? He thought he was catching up to the Snake Sannin. If that was the level they played at, though, he couldn't be sure anymore if not all of his beliefs were just arrogance encouraged by Orochimaru himself.
Which made the 'apprenticeship' much more dangerous than previously assumed. He was well aware of Orochimaru's goal and that revenge would be meaningless until carried out by himself, not hands that looked like his but were steered by the Snake Sannin.
The mark on his shoulder throbbed. He uttered a grunt as his shoulder blades twitched painfully. It would take weeks for the seal to restore its old powers. And months to ease away the memory of Jiraiya actually ripping out his wings.
He frowned.
Perhaps it was foolish to try and match a Sannin on physical terms. It would take much longer until such a chasm could be bridged, longer than two years in any case. But what if Orochimaru was weak? The moments before he switched bodies had to be rough. Otherwise there wouldn't be such a strict time limit.
Sasuke frowned. What else could he use to his advantage?
His Sharingan. A feeling of pride rushed through his body, galvanizing his thoughts. He had tricked a Sannin today, and that had been solely due to his heritage. Ultimately there was no better blood than an Uchiha's; why not bet on that edge? He had the most powerful Doujutsu in the history of the Elemental Countries at his command, why not sharpen that sword until he could stick it right into Orochimaru's weakened heart?
Next morning Naruto stood in the inn's communal bath, letting cold water pour over his body and aching head. The night had brought little sleep and even less avoidance of what happened last evening.
Naruto leaned his head against the tiled wall of the shower. He'd done the right thing. He knew that. He was sure everyone from Grandma Tsunade to Jiraiya to all his friends would tell him the same.
Sakura's finger trailing across his chest; the nape of her neck . . .
He clenched his fist, a last ditch attempt at control. Then he couldn't control himself anymore and hammered it against the wall. The tile cracked in two, fell, and broke into shards on the ground.
If it really was the right choice, why was he so goddamn frustrated about it?
His lips twitched their way into a sad grin as he kept leaning his head against the wall, eying the broken tile at his feet. Because all of him screamed that it hadn't been the right choice, even though he knew it was. Because right now he couldn't help that his mind was crowded with images of what if they had continued, what if that had just been the natural way, what if it would have changed his relationship to Sakura for the better? What if afterwards he could have felt her skin so much more? Could feel her breath on his ear whenever he wanted?
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Action, Uzumaki, he thought, turning off the shower. Nothing's over yet. Just keep at it.
He slapped his cheeks with both palms, blinked a few times, then toweled himself off and slipped into his clothes. They'd have to find Sasuke and take care of the swamp. That he could focus on.
After brushing his teeth Naruto went across the hallway, back to their room.
" . . . so there was nothing with Naruto? Isn't that what young people are supposed to do?"
He stopped at hearing Jiraiya's teasing voice. Naruto wasn't quite near the sheet that replaced their door but close enough to listen in.
"No! Not that it's any of your business!" said Sakura. "And I'm glad it didn't."
"Pining after your other teammate, then?" Jiraiya's voice was humorous, though Naruto recognized a subtle undercurrent of something else beneath those words. "It's always the strong, silent ones, is it?"
Sakura hmpfed. "It's not because of Sasuke, if that's what you're referring too," she said. Then her voice lowered to an embarrassed whisper and Naruto had to concentrate harder to hear her. "Naruto . . . He's the closest thing I have to a brother."
She paused, then added with a subdued tone, "He's practically family. More so than my mother and father in any case . . . "
Then her voice became iron-hard. "If you tell him that, I'll kill you. Or ask Tsunade-sama to do it for me."
Jiraiya chuckled. "No need to involve Tsunade-hime. It's not my place to tell him anything."
It grew silent until Jiraiya cleared his throat. Naruto recognized this as the imminent sign of impeding wisdom. He'd heard it often enough. "You might want to tell him that yourself someday soon though," said Jiraiya. "You two are shinobi, Sakura. I know you think you're young and hard to kill, but we don't live too safely in our profession. It's better to err on the side of caution as a shinobi. And that involves telling important people how you feel as well. One day it might be too late to tell him all that."
"I . . . I'll think about it."
"That's all I'm asking."
Naruto stood in the hallway. Brother, eh? Family . . .
Don't think about it, Uzumaki. Just keep movin' forward.
He tried to put on his best grin, practiced and perfected over the first years of his life, and found that he couldn't quite manage it after all. He'd gotten so used to not having to use it . . . Amazing how quickly you forgot such simple things.
Still, he tried. Keep it simple. Smile and go in.
"There you are," said Jiraiya when Naruto entered the room. "I was afraid you've drowned yourself or slipped on the soap."
"Hilarious," said Naruto. He sat down at the table, avoiding looking at Sakura while he counted the bread crumbs on Jiraiya's plate.
Jiraiya nodded. "I know; that's why I said it."
"What's the plan for today?" asked Sakura.
The shift in the atmosphere was palpable. Maybe it was because he knew Jiraiya a lot better now after those two years, but Naruto detected the subtle ways in which the old pervert tensed.
He looked up. "Somethin' happened?"
"You could say that," said Jiraiya. "I had a run in with your teammate yesterday."
Wide eyes. "What? Where is he?"
"Right now? In the swamp, somewhere. He . . ." Jiraiya sighed. "He tricked me into thinking Orochimaru was after you. I've a good idea how he managed that, but back then it worked beautifully."
Sasuke tricking even the old pervert? That sounded about right.
"The larger problem is that things could get a lot more dangerous for us now," Jiraiya went on. "I'd bet good money he's called Orochimaru by now."
Naruto leaned in, knuckles right on the table. "What're we goin' to do?"
"You? For today, nothing. I want you to stay here until I've visited all my contacts on Danube to alert them and send some of our information to Konoha." His brows narrowed into a serious expression. "I mean it. Stay here in Kinzoku and away from that swamp. I'll leave a messenger seal with you, Sakura. If you notice anything strange at all, activate it. Don't hesitate, just push your chakra into the matrix and I'll come as quickly as I can. From now on we're only moving outside together." Then his face brightened up. "Tsunade-hime would kill me if I let you two investigate on your own while Orochimaru is close by."
Naruto felt heat rush up his ears. "You want us to do nothin'?"
"Exactly." Jiraiya leaned on the table as well, and if they weren't glaring at each other, Naruto would think they were so close they'd kiss soon. "I get that you're burning to go out and find Sasuke, but we need to be smart about this, Naruto. The moment Orochimaru got involved this became an S-ranked mission. You know that stuff."
"But doin' nothing?"
Jiraiya intensified his glare, then leaned back and sighed. "Think, idiot-student of mine. You've met Orochimaru before. Remember how that felt and then tell me again to go at this half-cocked like you want to."
That was, sadly enough, true. Naruto's memory was good enough to call up how the Snake Sannin's malevolence had felt up close; it definitely wasn't something he could remind himself of without the hairs on his neck standing up like needles.
Then Sakura pitched in, putting her hand on his shoulder. "Jiraiya-sama is right, Naruto," she said, not noticing Naruto tense at the contact. "Don't worry, I'm sure we can pass the time together somehow." She smiled at him. "It's not like we're not used to waiting, what with Kakashi-sensei and all."
Don't show anything, Uzumaki. Don't you dare show anything now!
He forced the corners of his mouth upward. "Right. No need to be all hot-blooded, eh? We'll get through the time somehow, won't we, Sakura?"
She nodded, satisfied. "Precisely!"
Jiraiya looked concerned, but then shrugged his shoulders. "Good. You know what to do when trouble's calling, Sakura. I'll get going now. If it goes well I'm back before sunset. And tomorrow we can start going after the origin of the swamp."
Jiraiya fastened the giant scroll to his back and left the room.
And as Sakura began thinking out loud about ways to pass the time, Naruto felt his insides clench.
No matter how hard he tried, his grin just wouldn't stay up.
It took Naruto half an hour with Sakura until he couldn't stomach it anymore. He waited for a moment when she wasn't looking, then left a clone with her and ran. Where to? Irrelevant. Away was the keyword.
In moments of frustration and sadness it sometimes helped to think of friends, to wonder how they were doing, or how they would have behaved in your stead. It was a good exercise to get you out of your head for a bit, perhaps even to adopt a new perspective that might help you move forward. Or so Iruka said.
Naruto thought on that advice as he jumped aimlessly from roof to roof. It was worth a try at least.
Well, what would Shikamaru do?
. . . nothing, because that was essentially what Shikamaru did all his life.
And Shino?
Naruto frowned, trying to imagine himself with a long overcoat, the sensation of bugs crawling over his skin, and the protective shade of his glasses against the sun. That wasn't enough though. The most important part was missing.
Logic. That was how Shino made decisions. Thinking like an old geezer, weighing pros and cons carefully.
Naruto grimaced.
That way he wouldn't get much farther. Shino was just so far away from who he was, even if Naruto could reason himself through this, he'd just feel wrong the whole time. He shuddered himself out of his imagining attempt. His fantasy was far too strong to do that for long with someone who had bugs all over him.
Kiba, then?
Naruto furrowed his brows. Then he sighed. Kiba was fine; but Kiba was also Kiba and that was all the justification needed to give up on that attempt as well.
Which left him with one alternative. How would Chōji deal with emotions like this?
Naruto thought. Then he thought some more, Gama-chan heavy in his pants.
That would do the trick. That was actually a way he could feel himself get right into . . .
And so it came that, an hour or so later, Naruto found himself on the roof of a restaurant. From below came the smell of fried chicken and grease, and also of noodles and spinach, and of sweet syrup and meat balls and bean paste. All those smells that he had miraculously converted to tastes in his mouth already. Several times.
Scattered around him, a flotilla of empty cups, bowls and containers. Somewhere behind him lay the empty husk of Gama-chan.
He'd apologize later.
Then he laughed. At least he wouldn't have enough money to pay for damages anymore.
Naruto rubbed his stomach. Good old Chōji really knew how to keep your mind busy. When Naruto's black, crumb-strewn shirt strained under his expanding belly, he burped to get some air out and relieve it of pressure.
The problem, Uzumaki, is that you've got no idea what to do now, don't cha?
No money. No food. No ideas.
What a shit way to pass the time. Jiraiya couldn't come back soon enough.
"Oook?"
Naruto blinked. Fip sat next to him, head in a bowl, paws simultaneously scavenging two paper baskets for remains.
"What you doin' here, boy? Not that I mind the comp'ny. 's not the greatest of days, is it?"
"Oook."
"Have at it," said Naruto, seeing that Fip was climbing into more bowls. "Sorry, can't get you more. Must be starved after that fightin' business yesterday, but sadly Gama-chan's good as dead."
Fip pulled his head out of a container and looked at Naruto with concern shining in his monkey eyes.
Then he jumped off the roof onto a fence, and from there climbed all the way down, slinking through the street.
"Well so much for that," said Naruto. "Not good enough for you either, eh?"
He sighed, then kept looking out over the maze of roofs stretching away from the restaurant to the wall circling Kinzoku. He heard bells, signaling incoming ships in the harbor; somewhere a light buzzed to life.
Boy how he wished to just pack up and get the hell off Danube with the old pervert. Things had worked out well enough in the past two years, but this freaking island and Sakura shot it all to pieces.
"Oook!"
Naruto looked up. Fip was climbing up the same way he had left, a bit slower though, in his left paw a plastic zip bag.
With food inside.
"What you got there?" Naruto opened the bag, sniffed the strange, spicy smell, then reached in. "What's that? Some cookie?"
Fip shrugged.
"Right enough," said Naruto. "Doesn't matter, I s'ppose." He put some into Fip's waiting paws, then pushed a load into his mouth, crunching his frustration away.
Cheeks bloated, he grinned.
And mimicking Shino's voice in his mind, he thought, It only stands to reason that if food makes you feel better for as long as you eat it, you should keep eating it. Basic logic.
In the depths of its cage, the Kyuubi slumbered. Each exhalation blasted waves of sewage against the metal bars keeping it locked up.
The sedately malicious aura around the sleeping Bijū—actively malicious was reserved for occasions of meeting its prisoner—shifted. Imperceptibly at first, like a blade of grass in a meadow that bent the wrong way in a storm.
Stranger tides arrived when not just the blade of grass changed direction but the storm itself, realigning the way the wind blew past.
Feeling a curious twitch in the fur behind its ears, the Kyuubi opened its eyes.
Something had changed.
Was changing still.
AN: Hope you enjoyed yourself. Cheers, Eilyfe.
