Blue Eyes Yellow Flash

Chapter four

A gathering of comrades part 2

Sasuke stood still, shocked at the reception he had received. He felt overwhelmed by the hurricane of greetings and well-wishings that were flying at him. Noticing the raven haired ninja's distress, Naruto stepped in. "Okay guys, stop bothering him for a bit. We can get reacquainted over a few drinks."

It was then that Sasuke noticed the table literally bending under the weight of bottles of beer and sake. 'A few.....?' he wondered. He also noticed a small target hanging on the wall that hadn't been there when he left the house earlier. "Naruto, what's the target for?"

Naruto grinned at him. "That's the cutoff target" he explained. "Before every new bottle, you have to hit the target with a kunai from the other side of the room, or you get cut off." Noticing the smirk growing on Tenten's face, he quickly added "Tenten, you have to hit the bullseye."

Tenten scowled at him jokingly. "Damn you Naruto!"

At this point Hinata walked into the room, pulling off an apron as she walked. "Okay guys the food's ready now" she announced to the room at large. The reaction was immediate, as room emptied in seconds, as people only paused in their rush to the kitchen to grab a bottle of their preferred drink from the table.

Sasuke was left alone in the room with Naruto and Sakura. They stood there for a few seconds just looking at each other before Sakura broke the silence. "So. All of team seven together again."

Sasuke smirked. "I'm sure Kakashi would be hurt to hear you exclude him like that Sakura-chan"

Wondering to himself at Sasuke's use of the chan suffix to Sakura's name, he mirrored Sasuke's smirk. "He was supposed to be here by now. I suppose he'll tell us he was helping an old lady across the road or some crap like that." Naruto moved closer to Sasuke, pulling something out of his back pocket as he approached. "Kakashi was going to be here for this, but if he can't be here on time it's his own fault."

He handed the item to Sakura and she walked behind Sasuke. It was with a smile that she she tied the forehead protector to Sasuke's head as Naruto summoned a shadow clone. Stepping back infront of Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura gave Sasuke huge smiles as the clone returned with a sake bottle for each of them. Lifting their bottles in the air, they grinned at each other. "Team Seven!" Sakura shouted.

"Team Seven!" Naruto yelled.

Sasuke grinned. He'd missed his team mates, even if he'd never let them know just how much he'd missed them. "Team Seven" he affirmed. They clinked their bottles together and then drained them simultainiously. Suddenly, they each pulled a kunai from their weapons pouches and hurled them at the target. They each thunked into it within a millisecond of each other. Laughing, the three reunited comrades grabbed some new bottles of drink and walked into the kitchen.

Sasuke groaned and leaned back, rubbing his stomach. Naruto did the same with a look of stunned disbelief on his face. The crowd on ninja around the table had a similar look on their faces. Hinata dropped down next to her boyfriend, looking extremely concerned. "Naruto-kun? Are you alright?"

Naruto grimaced, reaching back towards the table. "Just one more bowl....."

Sasuke grinned, knowing he'd won. "Give it up Naruto. You're the dobe, again."

Naruto growled at him as he continued reaching for the table. "Shut up teme!" Abruptly conceding defeat, he collapsed back into his seat, then turned to Sasuke with a look of mock awe on his face. "So it's true then...you have become truly powerful. I never thought I'd see the day that you'd beat me in a ramen eating contest!"

Sasuke gave out a loud laugh, unaware that most of the people around the table were staring at him in shock. For most of them it was the first time they'd heard him actually laugh. "There's lots of things that can be said about me and Orochimaru, and one of them is that neither of us can cook worth a damn. This is the first good tasting meal I've had in over four years.

Naruto suddenly glowed with pride. "Told you Hinata was a good cook."

They both laughed, then looked to the side when they heard a loud slurping noise. Chouji was still ploughing away. Feeling their eyes on him, he looked up. "What?"

Again, everyone laughed, before Ino suggested they move back into the other room. Agreeing, everyone grabbed their drinks and headed back to the room they were in previously. Once they were there they saw a sight that shocked them all. Well, it shocked Sasuke anyway. Kakashi was lounging on the couch, casually drinking a beer. His mask was nowhere to be seen.

Sasuke gaped at the man who had been his sensei. After all the nights of wondering what was under the second mask, it was finally revealed. And it was not at all what he had been expected. Pointing at his former teacher, Sasuke seemed to be channeling Naruto as he yelled out loud "After all that you've just got a perfectly normal face!"

Ino snorted behind him. "A perfectly hot face, I think you mean....sorry Chouji."

A voice he didn't recognise whispered in his ear. "Blondie's right, his face is perfectly normal. Provided of course that you ignore the fact that it's made of pure sexy."

Sasuke whirled around to come face to face with one of the most infamous kunoichis in Konoha. "Mitarashi Anko....how the hell did you get there without me noticing?"

Anko just laughed at him. "Hey, it's not my fault you were too busy looking at my boyfriend to notice a hot woman walking up behind you." She laughed again as she strutted over to the table to get herself a bottle of sake. "Hey Sakura, this might have something to do with why he never accepted any of your offers for a date!"

Sasuke just glared at her. "Still a malicious bitch I see."

Anko laughed yet again. "You know it!" Suddenly the expression on her face went cold, and her voice when she spoke was pure ice. "Still, I'm the only one who's allowed to say that. You will pay Uchiha Sasuke. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow. But someday you will know pain, and you will know that I have had my revenge. Until that day..." Her voice suddenly turned cheery again. "Let's have some fun!"

Naruto created about twenty Kage Bunshins and sent them upstairs for no apparent reason before hurling a kunai at the cutoff target and grabbing a beer for himself, Sasuke and Kakashi, who had just finished his. Plonking himself on the couch next to his former Sensei, he opened his beer and grinned. "So what took you so long this time sensei?"

Kakashi smiled and decided to surprise his student by actually telling the truth. "Anko was horny" he said in complete honesty.

Naruto nearly choked on his beer. "Pervert! I didn't need to know that!"

Sasuke shuddered at his memories of Anko from the chuunin exam. The woman liked tasting blood....he hated to think what she might be like in the bedroom. "I agree with the dobe, I really didn't need to know that."

Leaning over the back of the couch, Kiba smirked. "I did." he declared.

Turning, Sasuke got his first good look at the dog-nin from his academy class. He was confused by what he saw. "Please tell me you don't wear that ridiculous getup on missions."

Kiba looked down at his clothes and laughed. He was wearing black combat boots, black jeans and a sleeveless black trenchcoat over a fishnet tank top. "Hell no, there's no way I'd be able to pull off a decent Gatsuga with this thing flapping behind me. I just wear this stuff because the ladies like it."

Sasuke looked at Kiba assessingly. His bare arms were quite muscly, and his shoulders were broad. After Naruto he was easily the most well developed of the graduates from their year-most shinobi tended towards slimness. Sasuke shook his head. "The clothes look cool, I'll give you that. But any self respecting kunoichi would disappear the instant you opened your mouth."

Kiba grinned even wider. "Civilian bars Sasuke! Chicks are all over anyone with one of these" he said as he tapped his forehead protector. "You guys have no idea what you're missing out on."

Sakura sniffed dissapprovingly. "Well maybe some of us prefer meaningful relationships to a string of one night stands."

Kiba glared at her. "Well you've never had a mmmmffff."

Naruto sighed in relief. He'd managed to get his hand over Kiba's mouth in time to prevent him from finishing his sentence. He liked his house, he didn't need Sakura punching Kiba through a wall. Trying to relieve the tension, he grinned at everyone. "So, how about some games?"

Sasuke grinned as he walked back into the front room from the kitchen. Against his expectations he was actually having fun, drinking, joking and just generally goofing around with the people he hoped to soon consider friends, not having been particularly close to most of them before he left Konoha on his mission. He pulled up short as he entered the room. Kakashi was still sitting on the couch. Looking up at Sasuke, he patted the couch next to him. Sasuke sat down next to him in response to the unspoken invitation. The jounin looked across at his former student. "So how are you doing?"

Sasuke sighed. "I regret it."

"Regret what?" Kakashi asked, even though he had a good idea what was coming.

"Killing Itachi." Sasuke replied. "It's not that I killed him, he deserved to die. But I felt so good about it....He knew he was dying, he knew I had killed him, and I loved every second of it."

Kakashi smiled at the young Uchiha. "It wasn't you at the time. You know what Inoichi said when he put the seal on you."

Sasuke nodded as he spoke "I know what he said, but it's nothing to compared to the reality. Everything I did, I can remember, and it sickens me. I killed so many people...and I never cared. Every body was just a stepping stone on the path to more power."

Kakashi smiled again, yet his single visible eye was still sorrowful. "Well I wish I could help you with this, but it's something you'll have to work through yourself. Best advice I can give you is to grab a beer and go back to the others. Friends are sometimes the only things that make the life of a shinobi worthwhile."

Nodding in agreement, Sasuke stood up after Kakashi did, and following the jounin's example he hurled a kunai into the now crowded target and grabbed another beer. As they were walking back into the kitchen, something occurred to Sasuke. "Hey Kakashi?"

"Hmm?"

"How come you don't wear the mask anymore?"

Kakashi laughed. "Anko doesn't let me wear it when I'm in the village, she says she wants all the other women to see what they're missing out on."

"Malicious bitch."

Sasuke woke up and groaned. 'Why did I drink so much last night?' he wondered. And then he remembered. 'Oh yeah. Naruto'. The memories from the night before had come rushing back. The group of friends had been drinking and playing games until the early hours of the morning, at which point Naruto had brought the shadow clones he made at the start of the night back downstairs to help the more intoxicated people home. Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura and Hinata had then stayed up even longer drinking some more and just generally enjoying the company. It occurred to him that he didn't even remember going to bed. Sasuke turned his head to the side and instantly regretted it for two reasons. Firstly, it brought a sudden stabbing pain to his head. Secondly, he saw a shock of pink hair resting on the pillow beside him. All he could think was 'Oh shit.'

Yay, four chapters done! As always, please review.