Chapter 8: Livid - Leery


"Shoot," Sakura said suddenly, looking up from her spot on the log. "What time is it?"

They were watching from farther away now, since Sasuke had moved his team to talk about their skills and abilities, and to prevent further harassment from weird children.

Naruto shrugged. "I dunno. Getting to be late afternoon? Maybe three or four?"

She stood up quickly. "Ah, I'm gonna be late!"

He raised a blonde brow at her. "Late for what? Goin' somewhere?"

Pausing in her rushing about for a moment, she raked a hand through her hair and sighed, "Ino's forcing me on this lunch-date-thing with a former patient I had."

The blonde let out a fake gasp. "Dating your patients? Scandalous!"

She rolled her eyes, smacking him lightly on the head. "Former patient. Besides, if I had my way, I would have politely refused. Tell Sasuke I had to go."

"Roger that," he nodded with a grin. "Have fun!"

Jogging off, she waved a hand behind her.


"So," Sasuke said, hands on hips as he looked at his three new pupils. "Abilities. What do you got?" He pointed at the glowering auburn-haired boy. "Teru, you first."

"Why me?" he grumbled, stepping up anyway. "Okay, well, I..." he scratched his head thoughtfully. "I work as a team with Hiyake, and I've got heightened senses and reflexes and stuff... I'm pretty speedy and good at tai jutsu. We're still working on some special clan techniques, but we've mastered Getsuga." The little dog yipped in affirmation.

Sasuke nodded. He was actually impressed with the boy's current skill, though if he could remember, it wasn't as much as Kiba's progression at his age. "Kin?"

The polite boy moved forward and nodded. "I was overall good at the different ninjutsu practices at the academy. They came to me pretty easily."

Manami chirped in. "That's right! Kin was top of the class for just about everything!" Teru's scowl deepened.

The boy chuckled bashfully. "I wasn't that good. Anyway, I also have an affinity for different weapons. My dad was a weapons forger, so I guess I had a big exposure to them."

Scratching his chin, the Uchiha studied the green-eyed boy carefully. "I think I might know somebody good for weapons training," he said, referring to the Ten Ten girl he had seen so often with Sakura. "Also, I want to check your chakra nature, since ninjutsu seems to come easily to you. Actually, I want to check all of yours."

Manami nodded impatiently. "Okay, okay, is it my turn yet, Sasuke-sensei?"

He flinched inwardly. He'd probably never get used to being called that. He inclined his head, motioning for her to go ahead.

"Yay! Alright..." She pulled a bow and arrow out of the tiny sack he had noticed before. Setting the weapon, she aimed it towards a random tree and stretched the string back. However, instead of releasing it immediately like Sasuke would have thought, she instead closed her eyes, letting her hands glow with chakra as she transferred it to the arrow.

His eyes widened, impressed. She released the string with a snap, letting the arrow soar through the air. It sunk deep into the bark with a satisfying thunk, definitely farther than a regular arrow would have. He noticed her peek at Kin to see if he was impressed.

"Whoa, nice!" the sandy-haired boy smiled.

Teru shrugged. "Meh."

"Kyūjutsu," he said, nodding with admiration. It was a bow technique, hardly seen in the ninja world nowadays. "That's not something you see very often."

The tiny girl beamed, deciding to ignore her snotty teammate. "Thanks! I've been working on that chakra thing forever!"

Transferring chakra to weapons was something pretty advanced. It definitely wasn't something he thought a genin fresh out of the academy would be able to do. "You must have amazing chakra control. Wait here a second." He turned to where Naruto and Sakura were sitting. "Oi! Sakura!" He narrowed his eyes as he realized she wasn't there.

He raised his hand to get Naruto's attention. "Naruto!" he called. "Where's Sakura?"

The blonde jogged over. "She said she had to go meet some guy for a lunch date or something. Why?"

The dark-haired man froze. "What?"

"Some old patient of hers invited her to lunch." The orange-clad ninja frowned. "You okay?"

"Who," he said, clenching his fists.

"What?"

"Who," he repeated angrily. "Who is she going to lunch with?"

"Didn't you hear me? Some old patient of hers! I don't know the guy!"

Letting out a frustrated sigh, the Uchiha turned around abruptly, stalking back to his team. Why was he so angry? Why was this bothering him so much? Was Sakura in trouble? His team looked at him with confused expressions.

"Oi!" Naruto said, catching up to him. "What's up with you?"

"Guess what," he said, ignoring his friend. He clapped his hands to get his team's attention. "Team Four's first mission assignment, right now."

"I thought only the Hokage could assign missions," Kin said, scratching his sandy haired with a perplexed expression.

"This is a special case."

"Yes!" Teru shouted, jumping up with excitement. "This is gonna be awesome! What are we doing? Huh? Huh? Fighting some bad guys?"

Manami grinned with excitement, also jumping up. "Yeah, are we gonna travel to another village? I bet we're the only team with a mission already!" For once, it seemed the two teammates were in agreement.

"Nope, but even better."


"You know, when you said this mission was gonna be 'even better' than our suggestions, I had pictured something a little different," Teru grumbled, crouched behind a bush.

"Oh, be quiet," Manami scolded in a whisper. "I think it's romantic." She smiled cheekily and elbowed Sasuke in the ribs. "Right, sensei? I knew you liked her."

Naruto, who had tagged along out of pure curiosity, chuckled in agreement. "I think you're right! Wow, I can't believe I never noticed it before," he said, sighing with happiness. "I mean, the way you always lovingly look after her when she walks by you. The way you whisper her name in times of stress. The way you hug and kiss the picture you have of her before you go to sleep every night!"

Manami squealed. "Really!?"

Sasuke swung his arm around, giving his idiotic blonde friend a well deserved whack in the head. "I've never done any of those things."

"Yeah, yeah," the blonde conceded. "I was just kidding, jeez." Manami looked a little disappointed.

"Besides, it's not like that. We don't know who this guy is. He could be dangerous."

"Right, of course," Naruto sarcastically agreed, sharing a secret look with the dark haired girl. "That's why we're here." He innocently looked away when he noticed the Uchiha's smoldering glare.

In case you were wondering, "here" meant by the village main streets. On a hill. Behind a bush. Spying on Sakura's lunch date. It hadn't taken them long to find her; her pink hair usually stuck out a lot. She was seated at an outside table, and she had changed out of her usual work attire into more neat and casual clothing.

"Ah, I think she's looking over here!" Kin said, ducking down.


"Something wrong?" Tamotsu asked, his icy blue eyes frowning in concern. He was out of his hospital clothes and into a simple pair of black pants and a blue shirt, probably lent from the Hokage, since he wouldn't have any clothes here.

"Ah! Oh, it's nothing, I just thought I saw something." She looked up at the bushes across the street. "Must've been a cat. Sorry, what were you saying again?"

"We were talking about my living arrangements here."

"Oh, right! Right!" she nodded. She was actually enjoying herself a lot more than she thought she would be. Tamotsu was always polite and mannerly, which was quite the breath of fresh air compared to her usual company. "You said the Hokage said you were able to stay for however long you felt needed before you return to your village."

"Yes, and I'm eternally grateful." He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. "But between you and me, well, I informed the Hokage of this, but... I don't remember anything before I came here. I must have gotten slight amnesia from my injuries, so I don't even know what village I'm from. They couldn't find any clues or evidence on my body either."

"What?" Sakura gasped. "Why didn't you tell the medical staff? This could be extremely important, you might have damage to your brain or—"

He waved her off. "I spoke with the Hokage about it, and she examined me. She said there seemed to be nothing wrong, and the only thing to do is wait. Also I didn't really want to spend any more time than needed in that hospital."

Sakura laughed, relieved that it wasn't a large problem. "That's good then, I guess. And I suppose it can get pretty boring in that place."


"Well?" Naruto asked, nudging his friend. "Whaddaya think? the guy looks fine and safe to me."

Sasuke ignored him, continuing to stare at their pink-haired comrade. His eye twitched. She was laughing.

"She seems to be having fun down there," the whiskered man poked again.

"Shut up."

"Why? Isn't it time we go now? I think you're overreact—"

"SHUT UP." The dark-haired man shoved the blonde off in anger, consequently pushing him through the shrub and down the hill.

"Ah, shit."


"Yeah, but you know, I do love my work and—" Sakura cut herself off, noticing more weird motion in the bushes above. Her mouth gaped open as she saw Naruto tumble down the hill. One of the kids from Sasuke's team popped out to help him.

"Hm?" Tamotsu said, looking behind him to see what she was looking at. "Are those your friends?"

She sighed. "I guess you could say that." She smiled sweetly. "One moment please."

She stomped across the street angrily, picking up Naruto by the collar. There were flames of rage in her eyes as he screamed at him. "What the hell are you doing here!?"

"H-hey, Sakura! Fancy meeting you here?" She dropped him back on the ground in disgust.

Looking at the floppy-haired boy quivering in front of her, she decided to change tactics. A little good cop, bad cop. Bending down in front of him, she smiled happily and spoke in a voice as sweet as syrup. "Sorry 'bout that," she chuckled. "Could I ask you what you're doing here?"

"U-umm," the boy stuttered. "I..." She followed his glance to the bushes on the hill in front of them and patted his head.

Stomping up the hill, she shoved the foliage away and looked down at two sheepish kids and a nonchalant Sasuke crouching on the ground.

"Hey," he said simply.

"Don't you 'hey' me! What the hell are you doing here!?" Her eyes widened and she stepped back. "Are you spying on me?"

"Well, I'll be going!" Naruto called, turning to run away.

"WAIT," she yelled, the fires of hell dancing around her. She waited until Naruto trudged up to where they were and looked at them expectantly.

"I want an explanation. NOW."

The three genin slowly edged away, not wanting to be collateral damage.

"Well, you see," Naruto stammered. "W-we were watching you... To find out what to get you as a birthday present! Right Sasuke?"

The dark-haired boy nodded earnestly. Uchiha or not, Sakura's punches hurt.

"What do you think, snow globe, right?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely."

Sakura smiled. "Aww! That's so sweet! You're totally forgiven! Except for the fact that my birthday was THREE FRICKIN' MONTHS AGO." She whacked them both in the heads and panted with rage.

The two gulped, wincing and rubbing their identical head lumps.

"Are you gonna tell me or am I gonna have to beat it out of you?" she growled, clenching her fists.

"Is there another option?" Naruto asked innocently.

And with that, she just about beat them to death.


A/N: Thanks for reading! This one was actually pretty fun to write. :)

Please review, constructive criticism welcome.