It took two whole days for the paperwork to process and in that time Sakura and Sasuke got an up-close and personal look at Naruto's daily life. Because he somehow got evicted. She's still not sure how that happened, to be perfectly honest, but she also had to sit through multiple loud retellings of what went down.
Supposedly the village provided for all orphans with the expectation they would enter the academy and either join the military upon graduation or, if they washed out, would work as non-combatant support staff for the village. Which was standard, all academy applicants signed a decade of their life to the village in return for training, the orphans just gave a little more. Apparently that village stipend ended when Naruto became a genin as he was expected to pay his own way. Which would have worked if they had continued to take missions as frequently as possible – and not given all their pocket money to an old lady with shark teeth.
Instead, team 7 hadn't taken a single mission in four days, and when Naruto returned home that night it was to the locks changed and most of his belongings in the street. The building's super cited noise complaints and late rent as the reason and told Naruto to get lost. And Naruto, not knowing what to do, had grabbed all he owned with a multitude of clones and gone to Sasuke's apartment.
He didn't know where Sakura lived otherwise he might have gone there first. She was smart and might have known what to do.
Sasuke, who hadn't been sleeping, opened the door when Naruto banged on it a few times, snarling, "What? I was asleep. Go away."
"Ahhhh… yeah, can I sleep here?"
"No," Sasuke said slamming the door in Naruto's face. Or tried to at least. Naruto managed to squeeze an arm through the gap and keep the door from shutting properly. He practically oozed through the door, wailing at Sasuke that teams needed to stick together.
A little while later, Naruto was sitting at a low table in Sasuke's living room, all of his belongings piled up around the entrance. Sasuke, who had no interest in receiving guests, did not offer Naruto anything to drink and Naruto, who had never been a guest in anyone's home in his entire life, did not notice the slight.
Glaring at each other, the silence echoed uncomfortably. Before Sasuke sighed and relented.
"Don't eat or touch anything. This is for tonight. Only." And he then disappeared into his bedroom firmly closing and locking the door. Naruto huffed, and stuck his tongue out at the closed door but kept his comments to himself before rolling out his mission bedroll (never before used by Naruto! Certified preowned by someone else!).
It did not in fact occur to Naruto to ask Iruka-sensei for a place to stay that night or the following day, but it did occur to Sakura when Sasuke appeared the next morning with Naruto in tow for their now-daily running of the hounds.
"Wait so…. You were evicted? It hasn't been two weeks since graduation!"
Sakura was huffing and puffing as she ran up the stairs while Naruto took them two or three at a time. Sasuke was doing knee to chest lifts each step; Sakura wondered if he knew he looked like a crane every time he did that. (Sasuke did not know what he looked like but did know he was bored staying in stride with Sakura, but last time he'd tried to leave her behind on the stairs, Bull had sat on him for half an hour.)
"Yeah I dunno I stayed with chicken legs last night," Naruto said jerking his thumb at Sasuke. (So it wasn't just Sakura that saw it.) "Anyways, don't know what to do now, 'm outa money…"
Sakura was silent for the rest of the trip up the mountain. The dogs were fairly sedated today too, and the boys weren't going at it like usual. (She also tried to pick up her pace about halfway up and couldn't pull in enough air to actually speak the rest of the climb.)
After she'd caught her breath, Sakura brought up the idea of staying with Iruka-sensei who was known for letting academy students stay with him when they had no one at home or nowhere to go.
Naruto rubbing the back of his head laughed it off. "I mean maybe but I never stayed with him in the academy so I don't wanna get in the way…"
"You were in my way idiot."
Valiantly ignoring Sasuke (it's for your own good, Sakura cried out in her head) Sakura glanced down at Pakkun who had also been listening all morning while the boys complained. The dog shrugged, he'd never had to worry about leases or housing or even buying kibble, Kakashi took care of all that – he usually followed the list and bought the correct shampoo even. Actually, that made him think of something.
"Do you at least have the lease?" the pug asked the orange hobo.
"A... lease? Nnnnno? I've lived there since I was 6." Sakura blinked at Naruto flabbergasted. Six? Since he was six? How? That made no sense. Whatever, that meant he was moved there under the Konoha Orphan Public Service and Resources Committee, which meant his lease would be on the books. She could work with that. (Sakura was the child of refugees and every single member of her family actively complained about or fought against the KOP and their latest sanction, the bunch of ruthless thugs.)
Sasuke, suddenly realizing that his silent insults hadn't even been understood that night or morning, kicked a rock at Naruto and nailed him in the face with it.
"Moron."
By noon, Sakura had managed to drag the boys and Pakkun to the public records archive in the basement of the Hokage tower. After jumping through a few hoops, making Naruto hula dance, and Sasuke threatening to light someone's hair on fire (the hoops and the hula might not have happened but Sasuke really did harass a poor non-com) it turned out that Naruto's lease was in the public record. Completely redacted and completely useless.
"Naruto… what the fuck…"
"Yeah I dunno."
So Sakura set out to talk with the tenant office. This, she swore to herself, would be her extra nice good deed for Sasuke. It couldn't be good for his health and sleep schedule to have Naruto hanging around. Solving such small problems for her idiotic subordinates also helped cement her place as team captain.
Obviously they should all be grateful for her heroic aid in their time of need!
Naruto was of no help at the office as he yelled about how it wasn't fair, while Sasuke lurked and glared in the background, and Pakkun sat at her feet and watched. Occasionally the man Sakura was speaking with, amidst his blustering and yelling, would insult Naruto and the dog would growl dangerously and the man would change his wording mid-breath.
Finally, Sakura had a breakthrough when she asked about the back rent.
"It goes week to week for you ninja. He's missed 'em."
"So if he pays his back rent and keeps up with it, he can have his apartment back? Great!"
Sakura beamed at the super with all the guile of a child. It wasn't going to be that easy but Sakura didn't have much of a back-up plan other than steamrolling the civilian and threatening him with knives (which would result in a citation and personally she wanted to be the only member of team 7 not to receive one).
The man huffs and glances around for an escape, and gladly latches onto the first he finds. "Get out, kids, office is closed or I'll have you fined for trespassing."
It's Sasuke who snaps that they will be back tomorrow to finish this before storming out. Naruto juts his jaw out and nods in agreement before following. Sakura watches them go for a second before turning back to the civilian for one last word, eyeing his desk for a nameplate.
"See you later, Ueda-san. I'm sure that we will reach an agreement. Right, Pakkun-sensei?" Sakura, still smiling, glanced down at the dog who blinked up at her catching on that he hadn't actually spoken the whole time.
"Probably the best outcome, Sakura. Later, Ueda." And with that the two followed the boys leavening a suddenly nervous civilian in their wake.
The team meandered their way across the village, plotting as they went. To sum it all up they needed to take as many missions as possible as fast as possible, get Naruto out of Sasuke's apartment, and train as often as possible according to the note Kakashi left. Pakkun was available for the first and last of the list but the middle parts were a little stickier.
"Ok, generally rookie genin get the cheapest of the d-ranks… which means we are going to need to pack in a lot in a day to actually make the amount we need… which means that we need to start as soon as the desk opens up for the day… and theoretically we could… hm… yeah that would work…. More paperwork… I bet I could get it in on time… plus training…. We need to do a few hours a day… and we need to eat… sleep is important…" Sakura mumbled mostly to herself.
By this point the boys where headed for Ichiraku while Sakura trailed behind them (Pakkun ditched out earlier with strict orders to meet up at 6am). Sasuke was hungry and was not willing to feed Naruto and if he went home now the idiot would just whine for something to eat there. Maybe he could foist the care and safekeeping of Naruto on Sakura. It'd work out great; she'd kill him within the night.
"Why didn't you go to Sakura's?"
"Uhhh… dun' know where she lives." Naruto scratched at his cheek. Maybe that wasn't very ninja-y of him to not know that but he was pretty sure Sasuke didn't know either (he didn't).
"Hm. Sakura," Sasuke said cutting the rambling girl off. "Where do you live?"
Sakura blinked at Sasuke completely floored. Sasuke was asking her where she lived? Where she lived? Her? Oh no Sasuke was asking her where she lived. Abort, abort.
"Oh! Sasuke-kun! Uhm. I.. Live around here! Yeah. Near by. It's close. To here. That-a-way." She gestured down the street feeling her will to live slowly fading. If she could die here and now, just drop dead that would be great.
"What, really? Sakura-chan! I wanna see your house!" Naruto was not helping.
"Yeah Sakura, let's go." Neither was Sasuke.
What was this gang up on Sakura day? After she was so nice earlier? Hell no she wasn't doing this right now.
"I actually have to go do more paperwork! You know captain stuff! So that – that we can take more missions! And make money! Ok bye!" She promptly turned tail and ran. There was no way she was going to let Sasuke into her house without at least three or four days of prepping. Her parents would embarrass her, the baby pictures needed to be removed from the walls. And Naruto might show up in the middle of the night or something and try and prank her and then she would get arrested for murder and it would be terrible for her sleep schedule.
"I think that was your fault," said Naruto watching the girl scamper up a fire escape. She really liked running up high for some reason.
"Pffttt. Whatever."
Sakura did follow through on her word of doing even more paperwork for missions, registering the team with the genin corps, and applying for multi team missions as well. Pakkun happily told the kids that each mission could be used as training if they applied themselves correctly and readily encouraged them to take just one more for every mission they completed.
Unfortunately, those missions were generally filthy unthankful work. Hard labor and long hours. The genin cleaned out gutters, weeded gardens, trapped varmints, disposed of the varmints, inspected sewers for any blockages, and caught that goddamn cat at least six times. The sewer system was a mess of elegant strategic thinking and outdated cheap labor techniques. Some of these pipelines predated the founding of the hidden village when the area was only populated by a small market town of a post office, the temple, a brothel, and a few streets of housing. All maps, while technically correct, could not be trusted unquestionably as the sewers were designed for difficult access in order to mislead and waylay invaders who would attempt to seize the city from below. It was frustrating and slow work, and while the lines were regularly prowled by ANBU they were not maintained by the elite. That was a job for the genin corps and recently it was a mission for Team 7. The only upside was Pakkun teaching them a trick with their chakra while traveling through the sewers.
Apparently it was possible to use chakra to stick to walls and ceilings with your feet as if you were walking on flat land. It was very impressive and explained how older shinobi got around so easily. Every child of the leaf knew how to climb, it came fairly quickly after walking here, but the ability to walk up walls was a game changer. For Sakura at least. The boys were having a harder and much more disgusting time learning the new trick.
As she trotted along the wall (her stomach in agony at the new core workout) she listened to the boys screaming at each other, themselves, and the filth behind her. This was the seventh line they had braved that day (and the fifteenth overall) and Pakkun had only shown them how to do this two hours ago.
She was disgusting and smelled like the bowels of a diseased rodent. Her parents might not let her in the house later, if they were even able to complete their missions before the day was over. Her hair was shellacked to her skull despite having pulled it back earlier to keep it out of the way. A shove from Sasuke earlier had sent Naruto careening into her which had caused Sakura to fall off a ledge and into the stagnate pool she had marked down for the secondary team to deal with only moments before. It was after that Pakkun decided to show them how to walk on walls.
She was exhausted, hungry, nauseous from the smell, and wanted nothing more than to crawl into her shower and scrub till the water ran cold. The boys were as unhelpful as always (sorry Sasuke-kun!) and Pakkun was staying firmly out of reach of anyone and frequently made use of the manholes to escape.
As Sakura peered at a crack near the ceiling of the pipeline the boys suddenly stopped making noise. Alarmed she turned to see what had happened to them, mildly hoping Naruto had been eaten by a sewer crocodile. Naruto and Sasuke had continued past her while she inspected the crack for structural damage and had disappeared into the darkness ahead. Dropping down to an easier height to make her way through the lines, Sakura ran after the boys with increasing worry. Palming a knife as she went.
"Sasuke-kun? Naruto? GUYS!"
No one answered her but as she rounded a bend a horrific scream echoed back to her. Panicking, she ran even faster, unknowingly using her new talent of basic chakra manipulation to aid her speed, because that didn't sound good and she didn't know where Pakkun was and maybe a sewer croc was eating them.
She was moving so quickly that in the dim lighting she nearly came unglued to the wall and fell into the drainage basin. Panting, she looked around, feet slipping on the damp concrete. She finally noticed the boys a few levels lower where Sasuke was laying in a heap and Naruto was flitting around him like a bumble bee around a fake flower.
"Hey! What happened?"
"Sakura-chan! Sasuke is dying!" Great, Sakura was here, she could take responsibility for everything since she was team captain now.
Sakura was glad she pulled a knife when she did, hopefully it would come in handy against whatever attacked them.
"I'm not dying, asshole, you broke my leg," Sasuke said trying not to actually look at it. When Sakura got a better glimpse of the boy and his… leg, she lost control of her chakra and slid down the drainage basin into the pool and dropped her kuni into the murk.
Legs were not suppose to look like that. It was rapidly swelling and turning a nasty purple color under all the muck and Sasuke was loosing color in his face. Naruto was dancing around uselessly and Pakkun wasn't here to take charge and Sasuke needed rescuing. It was her time. Sakura's moment. To prove to everyone how incredible she was. How remarkable. How much everyone needed her to save the day.
Climbing out of the pool she grabbed Naruto by the shirt dragging him down to kneeling level with Sasuke.
"We gotta make a splint and get to the hospital. Damn I wish we had mics for this. What happened?"
The boys eyed each other silent as the grave before Naruto croaked out, "Sasuke tried to jump across and fell like the idiot he is." Sasuke, who's strength was sapped by the sight of his leg going two incompatable directions, mustered the reserve to swat at Naruto.
"No! I did not. You distracted me when you fell!" Neither were going to admit that a rat had crawled out of a hole had made direct eye contact with the both of them and lit a cigarette before telling them to piss off. Both of them fell in surprise after Naruto tried to challenge the rat to a duel and slid down the wall into Sasuke who was so bewildered by a talking rat that he lost his footing and fell 25 feet into the basin, causing his leg to strike the safety railing.
They ended up admitting it anyway while yelling at each other about blame.
"You broke my LEG!"
"IT WAS THE RAT!"
"What rat?"
"If YOU hadn't tried to punch it this wouldn't have happened!"
"Yeah well.. It still wasn't my fault! 'Sides you're the one that broke a bone so that just means you ain't that great, huh?"
"…right I'm just going to splint this now, it's gonna hurt."
"You eat my food – break my leg – insult mEEEEEEE FUCK!"
"Ugh gross, it made a noise? Is it suppose to do that?"
"Naruto, lets just get out of here."
Technically this was the fault of shoddy training by dog and an absent sensei and also a talking rat that Sakura determined was hallucinated by the boys after inhaling fumes from the sewer system. (She marked that on the maps for the secondary team to look into as well.) Technically Sakura was team captain and her subordinate got hurt on her watch. Technically Sakura was in for it. Technically she was a legal adult and in the eyes of the law could be treated as such. Technically Sakura had to answer for her team's stupidity.
The nurses fussed over the last Uchiha as if he was a celebrity, adored by all. The trauma care medic-nin on duty was not as impressed. Setting the leg and healing it as much as hospital regulation allowed, she quizzed down the kids on what happened, making notes in the team and personal files.
"Where's your sensei?" the medic asked.
"He left Pakkun in charge while he went on a mission." Sakura was going to be as professional as possible.
"Yeah, lady Kaka-sensei knows what's up." Naruto wasn't going to be professional because he didn't know what professional was.
"Right. And you're squad captain?" Why the hell were these kids running around and voting on captains so fast. What happened to normal baby ninja who did nothing but yell at each other and their sensei for a few years then got their act together and discovered paperwork?
"Yes ma'am." Oh no Sakura was going to be put down as the responsible party. She couldn't be responsible for anything – she was twelve! – just look at her she was covered in filth what kind of adult was covered in filth even if it was for the mission?
"How many missions have you done in the last two days exactly?" This was the third time the medic asked.
"This was our twelfth." They needed to make money fast and missions were the best option for newly minted assassins looking to make some cash and not get arrested. No need to let the medic in on how many under the table jobs they would be taking in the next few days.
"And your sensei left you under the care of a dog that's not even here." The medic closed her eyes searching for benediction. Why were jounin like this?
"Yeah, we said that lady. And he's a talking dog, get it straight." Naruto had to set the record.
"I need a responsible adult who isn't twelve to take care of you," the medic directed at Sasuke who was prodding at the cast on his leg. It needed to stay on for two weeks while the bone completed healing to remove the strain from the surrounding muscles and tendons. Hospital Regulations during peace time made it so a non-life threatening injury would be healed to the point the shinobi could complete their usual mission load – though in the case of genin only to the point that they learned from their mistakes early on in their career. Typically, it meant a cast and restrictions on training and mission load.
"Sure. I know adults." Sasuke didn't know adults beyond Iruka and Kakashi and neither was available at the moment.
"It'll be ok. My parents can help out." Sasuke was not staying in Sakura's house because she was pretty sure that would mean Naruto would be staying in her house and she hadn't had time to make her house Sasuke-proof so he didn't see anything embarrassing. But all ninja worth their salt knew how to lie when needed.
The medic, who didn't really have a way to hold Sasuke in the hospital, relented and sent the team off with strict instructions. She had no doubt that they would be back and that they would not listen to her recommendations.
The next day Sasuke was kept home from mission work and Sakura and Naruto were put on a multi-team squad to continue surveying the sewer system. Team Gai was a terror. First there was the boy in green with the eyebrows who talked louder than Naruto, then the Hyuuga with a stick so far up his ass it could scratch his brain, and finally the girl who seemed to roll with the punches before hitting back twice as hard. Actually she was pretty cool.
Pakkun took one look at the green clad boy and wished he could leave – he felt bad for Sasuke getting hurt on his watch and wasn't about to leave these idiots up to their own devices again. Naruto immediately set out to make enemies with Hyuuga Neji, smelling a pompous brat a mile away. Sakura could only hope that this mission cleared without any more trips to the hospital.
Tenten was remarkably well adjusted for all her teammates' quirks and easily took the lead on the mission. She smiled at Sakura when she introduced herself and causally told Sakura that she looked forward to working together even if it was in a sewer. Sakura was struck by the professionalism and class the older girl possessed and decided then and there she would do everything in her power to get more missions with team Gai in the future.
Not even Rock Lee waxing poetic about her pink hair and beauty – or something about blossoms and youth she assumed it meant beauty – made her think twice about that personal vow. Female solidarity was sacred and Tenten had earned it.
The actual excursion into the sewer went off much better than the day before. Neji did, however, end up mocking Naruto for not being able to walk on the walls yet and Lee came to his rescue before Naruto tried to deck the bastard.
"Fear not, Naruto! I too cannot yet walk on walls but with due diligence to our training we will be able to achieve it soon enough!" This was punctuated with a clenched fist and a sparkly grin.
Naruto, unnerved by the enthusiasm and delighted by the camaraderie, shouted out his own agreement and went back to attempting wall climbing. Neji scoffed and continued on at a safe height, out of reach from the bright boys.
"Is he always like that?" Sakura asked. Maybe two loud preteens would cancel each other out?
"Sometimes he's worse. What about yours?" Tenten cheerfully replied. Her team was weird, she was used to it, and had come to see the ways that could be used to her own advantage in the field.
Sakura eyed Naruto as he shook a fist at Neji's back before charging head-first at a slime covered wall considered it. "About the same actually."
"Che. Figures you wouldn't be doing your job. Get back to work." Neji had passed by the girls and, ignoring the fact that his own teammate was standing around as well, had made direct eye contact with Sakura while he said that. He also gave her a once over and made no attempt to hide that he found something lacking.
Affronted, Sakura shook her own fist at the boy's back while Tenten snorted next to her. Pakkun sat on the ceiling and could only shake his head at baby ninja dynamics. They would probably never learn.
Elsewhere Sasuke practiced sticking his feet to his apartment wall while laying on the ground. It wasn't going great and he was going to need to make a trip to the store for spackle to fix a hole or three. He could probably blame it on Naruto. Or use something in all that shit Naruto had dumped in his apartment. Rolling over, Sasuke reached for the closest box. Time to find some secrets.
AN yeahhhh heres chapter 4! enjoy! and if you want i have a ko-fi account now ;) ko-fi [DOTcom BACKSLASH] behenna