Nars: Brush up on your Arthurian knowledge because this is about to get messy! Also, really cracky, like damn.

Some sentences lifted from the Tristan and Isolde (2006) movie transcript.

Chapter Summary: Because plays are apparently critical to the development of pre-Genin ninjas. Sakura and Hinata unwittingly end up in the centre.
Prompt: Medieval
Word Count: 1903

Disclaimer: Naruto/Naruto Shippuden belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. All characters mentioned belong solely to the aforementioned.


Sakura wakes up to a knock on the front door. It's too early for it to be one of their friends coming to steal their food or take Hinata away for training or anything like that, so she is understandably a bit cautious. She stands, rubbing sleep out of her eyes and opens the door, finding one of the younger chūnin kunoichi with a scroll in hand. "Hi?" She says.

"H-Haruno-san," The kunoichi replies, straightening her back, "A notice from Hokage-sama!"

Sakura accepts the scroll with a polite smile and the other ninja jogs away. She closes the door and pops the scroll open, skimming over the words as irritation swells inside of her.

'Sakura, come to my office asap and bring that roommate of yours too! Don't be late ;)
- KH'

"Gimme a break." She huffs, chucking the scroll into the garbage. Still, she knows better than to ignore a request, be it from Kakashi or not. A part of her does wonder what this 'request' is. Probably something on a more personal level, like come over and give his poor aching shoulders a massage. Sakura rolls her eyes and sets about preparing two pieces of toast before she wakes Hinata.

Before she can bother with the second part, she hears Hinata open her door and then sees the other girl slowly slink out, dragging her feet with her hair in utter disarray. "Good morning..." She whispers.

"Hinata-chan, we have a mission." says Sakura, spreading jam on the finished toast. "Or something, I don't know. It's from Kakashi-sensei."

The Hyūga finally looks alert, eyes wide and all traces of drowsiness gone. "Okay." She takes the toast given to her by Sakura and takes a bite. "I wonder what..."

"Yeah, same." says Sakura. Her heart thunders in her chest at the fleeting thought that it might be to go and retrieve Naruto and Sasuke. Hinata could track with her Byakugan and Sakura knew her teammates better than anyone. Perhaps that was precisely it. She gobbles down the rest of her toast and grins. "I'll be in the bathroom!"

"Bye...?" says Hinata but by then, Sakura is already gone.

...

"Sakura!" trills Kakashi when they reach his office at the top of the tower. He spins in his chair, missing the glare Shizune sends him as she jams her foot between the swiveling wheels and stops his movement. "So glad you could make it!"

"Kakashi." She quips dryly, "Wouldn't miss it."

"And I see you brought Hyūga-chan too." He says, visible eye crinkling politely at Hinata.

She goes beat red and sinks into the chair in front of him, "J-Just Hinata is okay, Hokage-sama."

He wags a finger at Sakura. "You could stand to be more like Hinata-chan, Sakura."

"Tell us why you called us here." She scowls, leaning forward excitedly. "Are we leaving the village?"

"Leaving?" He repeats, meeting eyes with Shizune who looks about as confused as him. "Guess we forgot to tell Hana-chan why we sent for you. Oh, well. You two are going to be helping around the academy for a bit!"

"What? Why?!" exclaims Sakura. "What happened to Iruka-sensei?"

He chuckles. "He's fine, he's fine. He's just been working over here a lot more."

As if on cue, there is a knock on the door and then Iruka shuffles in, balancing a very thick pile of papers in his hands. He sets them on top of Kakashi's desk with a glare. "Do you know how many errors are in here?"

"No, but I guess you're about to tell me." says Kakashi with a long-suffering sigh. "Just go to the academy, the others can tell you the rest."

Hinata raises a brow, "T-The others...?"

Sakura shrugs. "Let's just go."

They leave the Sixth to his distress and head off, passing a few Genin students as they make their way to the training grounds. If Sakura remembers correctly, now is about the time where the teachers begin to teach how to use weapons. She wonders what they had to do at the academy, in that sense. Beside her, Hinata's silence indicates she may be wondering the same. Hinata shoulders the door to the academy open and as she does so, is attacked.

She falls to the floor with a shriek as Sakura jumps two feet in the air, on the offensive. The sound of barking is all that can be heard.

"A-Akamaru!" exclaims Hinata in the midst of being assaulted by the giant dog's slobbers. Well if the dog was here then that meant... Sakura glances over, finding Kiba and Shino approaching them, the former grinning as though his dog did not nearly give her a heart attack. Hinata sits up, scratching Akamaru under his chin.

Sakura shielded her mouth to cover up her laughter. "Hinata-chan, your shirt is covered in dog slobber."

She looks down at the top of her shirt and sighs, "Akamaru, why...?"

"He just wuvs you, Hinata." laughs Kiba as his dog trots over to sit beside his leg. "So Hokage-sama got you too, huh?"

Sakura nods. "The academy isn't so bad, though. What're we doing? Teaching chakra control or something?"

Kiba blinks. "You mean you don't know?"

Hinata shakes her head. "H-Hokage-sama only told us to come here... What are we doing?"

Shino clears his throat, voice only somewhat muffled behind his coat. "We are putting on a play."

Sakura and Hinata both exchanged an incredulous look and in sync, cried "What?!"

...

"Is this even i-important?" says Hinata as they search through the 'costume room' that was just a storage for things that the academy didn't regularly utilize.

Sakura scratches her cheek. "Apparently it promotes medical-nin training since most of the kids think it's lame." She was mildly perturbed by that, especially since she was a medic-nin and a lot of people in the village idolized her. Was it really that uncool of a job? She saved people. "Shino-kun, what's the name of the play again?"

"Tristan and Isolde." He says.

"...It's a romance." mutters Kiba, flipping through the book they were drawing inspiration from. "Okay, lemme read this. The tale of Tristan and Isolde is a tragedy between two lovers fated to share a forbidden but abiding love. Yikes. Tristan is a knight who serves King Mark–Holy shit, I call being the king!–and Isolde is a renowned healer."

"Sakura-chan should be Isolde." Hinata beams, "It makes the most sense."

"Ugh, do I have to?" Sure, it makes sense but... did she really want such an imposing role? This was more of Ino's forte than anything else. Acting was... not her style.

Hinata nods furiously. "You'd be amazing! I'll even make celebratory d-dinner tonight!"

"Well, only if dinner's included." teases Sakura, resigning herself to her fate. She turns to them to ask if Shino would be playing Tristan, only to find the two boys watching them with very suspicious expressions.

Kiba smiles smugly, "If you two wanna act married so badly, then you be Tristan, Hinata!"

"Wh–?" The Hyūga shakes her head profusely. "I-I can't be the lead! I can barely even–"

"You'll be fine." He says reassuringly.

Beside him, Shino nods. "Plus... you are the only possible option seeing as this is the costume." He holds up a very skinny outfit with far too much room at the bust instead of anywhere else. "None of us can fit into it."

She groans, sinking down to her knees. Sakura pats her shoulder comfortingly, thinking that Hinata would put that tunic to shame once she put it on. But the problem would probably be getting her to put it on. They had a long day ahead of them.

...

They spent a few hours revamping the script and making it slightly more politically-correct. Shino had been very adamant on making sure that the girls felt as powerful as the boys, since Tristan was now an ANBU officer directly serving Marke the Hokage–and although Isolde the medical-nin was famed, most people still preferred the ANBU.

Sakura furrows her brows, reading over the third draft. "I think this is pretty good so far. Not bad, Shino."

He nods and his chest puffs up with triumph. The premier of the play would be two days from now. They could do this.

"Akamaru gets to be the Nine-tailed fox that Tristan kills." says Kiba proudly, "He's the real star."

Hinata smiles and rubs the base of Akamaru's tail. "We h-have to work together, hm?"

He barks as if saying yes and settles his head on her lap. Sakura has to admit that Hinata looks perfectly natural when around animals too. It made sense, since her team commanded them. The dog seems to like her a lot, at least.

"Try acting out this scene." suggests Shino, pushing a slip of paper towards the girls. "This is where Isolde heals Tristan's wounds suffered through his battle with the fox and he brushes her off."

Hinata's eyes skim over the paper and she nods. "I'll... t-try my best!"

Sakura doesn't really like her costume, thinks it's too mesh-like, but it was the most they could do. Kakashi really owed them big time. "ANBU-san, your wounds are not yet healed."

"I'll be fine." Hinata says crossly, clutching her mask in her hand as she puts on a fake air of distress. "I do not need your help."

She huffs. "Then get up, force yourself to return to Hokage-sama and see if he'll accept a broken ANBU."

"I do not care! It is my lifelong duty to serve Hokage-sama." says Hinata, shying away from Sakura's touch as she leans forward to take her arm.

Sakura tilts her head to the side, "Oh really? You know, there's more to life than just servitude!"

She snorts. "Like what?"

"Something more than duty and death!" She exclaims, holding a hand to her chest, "Why are we capable of feelings if not to have them? Why long for things if they are not meant to be ours? You may think serving your Hokage is all there is, but those around you are even more important. What would they think if you died here?"

"They would say that I died... with glory."

"Glory isn't everything." She protests. "What about love?"

Hinata frowns. "What about it?"

Sakura comes closer, ghosting her finger across Hinata's jaw, "...Don't you want it?"

Having been completely immersed in the scene, Sakura realizes far too late that she's forgotten her next line and was leaning way, way too close to Hinata. The Hyūga doesn't show signs that she's noticed, and her eyes are glazed and distant. Warning bells are going off in Sakura's head. There's no way she can finish this scene now that—

"I forgot my line!" yells Sakura, breaking character and scooting several feet away from Hinata who sits up and busies herself with gulping down an entire bottle of water. "What was the line again?"

Kiba and Shino are silent. She spares them a glance and finds that they are both feverishly plugging their nostrils up with tissues to block the bleeding. Sakura groans, "...Let's just finish this tomorrow."

"Agreed." Hinata and her team say at once, as they begin to pack up for the day.

...

In the end, they mutually agreed to cut all traces of romance seeing as how none of them could handle it maturely. The Academy students gave it a standing ovation, but only because Akamaru the Nine-Tails had completely stolen the show.


Nars: No regrets. Give it up for that good acting though, Sakura and Hinata got way too into it. I agree tho.

*cough* Tomorrow's prompt is Fake Relationship and, uh, it's pretty self-explanatory. Please review :^)