Lassoed With a Rope-Dart
I'm going to be honest with you.
Given how enthusiastic I was to type AATC: T, I did it first. Bad news is, it's thrown my schedule out of whack and in an effort to correct it, I typed this chapter in the same week. Even worse, I have to find a way to put in a 5k chapter and a 10k chapter within ten days. I believe in miracles.
What I'm saying is that you can find the next chapter for LWARD in three weeks.
Disclaimer: Meh, whatever. I don't own Naruto. But I own what I own, if that says anything.
9.
"So, Mr. Uzu-Namikaze, what are you gonna do now?"
"Aw, you know that you'll still be baa-chan, no matter how big I get." Naruto replied in jest.
Apparently, Tsunade found it to be in poor taste and tried to tell him physically instead of verbally. As he narrowly escaped her clutches through the door with Matsuri in tow, she decided to tell him in vocals after all.
"Naruto! When I find you, I'm going to-"
Her voice carried on after them down the stairs, and all the way to the front entrance, and the things the irate woman described made the Sand Kunoichi widen her eyes. "Is that even possible?"
Naruto looked up to his forehead in thought, while cocking his head to one side. "I don't think so, but I'm not going to risk it, be it whatever mode or state I get into and or use."
For a second, she thought he looked vaguely intellectual, but the moment soon passed and he seemed boyish again. "Modes and states? Don't you just have Sage mode?" She queried, baiting him to see if she could learn something else about him.
"Err…no. I have Sage mode." He briefly retreated to his thoughts and soon came to the conclusion that she already knew about the Kyuubi, so it was safe to tell her about what she just saw. As long as she didn't find it…putting off. That was describing it mildly.
"Remember the…uhh…state that I was in back in the office?"
"The rasengan thing?"
"No. Not the jutsu. Although it was awesome, wasn't it?"
"Hai. It was. Come to think of it, why'd you go that far for me?" She asked. Ramifications of what could have happened suddenly assaulted her mentally and nearly made her dizzy just thinking about it. "Oh boy, oh Kami, I'm alive. I was going to be tortured for telling the truth, you threatened the Hokage, you threatened a leader of a ninja village and we're alive. Oh-"
She got a light slap on the cheek with a backhand. "Quit doing that."
She glared at him before she rubbed the offended cheek. "Doing what?! You're the crazy one!"
"Who said anything about crazy? You're the one who said it."
That was true. But why was he so…casual with what just happened? She supposed an exception could be applied to her; she was busy staring at very powerful jutsus and the fact that it blew over so easily. 'Was this what Kakashi-san meant when he said that his student was close with the Hokage? To the point of calling her grandma? Are they related? They are blondes, after all. But Naruto claimed to be an orphan. I might know Naruto's character to some extent but that's just the surface. I really don't know anything about him.'
"Hello, Matsuri? Something on my face? Why are you staring at me?"
She quickly caught on. "Sorry. Didn't mean to." She averted her gaze downwards as they continued walking.
'What's she thinking about?' "Ah, I get it. You're worshipping my epic-ness. It was only a matter of time."
Her breath caught in her throat on an inhale. "Worshipping your epic-ness?"
"Oh yeah!"
Barely a second later, he found himself pushed into a light pole just as they were about to pass it. "OW! By 'ose!" He cried out in a nasally-sounding voice. "What da 'eck?!"
"Not so epic, after all." She answered smugly.
After soothing his injured nose and his pride, he spoke again. "You should thank Kami that I don't hit girls in reprisal. Cause if I didn't, there probably wouldn't have been anything left of you but your sandals if I did."
"Is that a threat?"
"It's not a threat; you can chisel that in granite, cause it would've happened. Geez, I thought you would have thanked me something. Not send me hurdling into some concrete inert object." He said in a hurt tone.
She sighed. "You're right. Thank you for doing something incredibly reckless to save my skin."
Hs mind wandered as she mentioned the last. "Skin?" He echoed with a blush.
She noticed his reaction and she quickly put two and two, believing that he was recalling the events of last night. 'Hmm.' "You ~like my skin~?"
His blush deepened a bit. But that's all she needed.
"You damn pervert!"
"For Kami's sake! I blame you for your choice of words, and for trying to sound sensual!" He retorted, trying to sound angry but it came out hollow. He backpedaled away in nervousness. "I'm not at fault!"
The sound of cracking knuckles actually made the dust shift away farther from her in a small ripple.
Naruto decided to get the hell out of dodge…while he still had feeling below neck.
He took to the rooftops and began darting away with her hot at his heels. As he did, he could see that the sun was beginning to set and he instinctively began heading for his home in the Red Light District.
(AN: To be frank, I don't know anything about such a district. It could have been started by a FF writer, for all I know. But for now, I'll use the idea.)
"Get back here and take it like a man!"
"I'm running because I want to remain a man!" He yelled back behind him.
"Men don't run!" She yelled in righteous anger.
Coming up to the end of the roof, he growled in frustration before he leapt off in a jump tumble, front flipped in the air and landed on the ground below on his toes. And there he waited for her to follow. She soon did, but some part of her felt off, seeing him about to relinquish himself to her mercies. She could have questioned it, but the 'womanly' side to her told her that she needed to dole out some justice.
"You gonna do it or what?" He shouted.
He was asking to get beaten up? Well, fine.
She stalked over to him and as soon as she was about to throw her first punch, he caught it effortlessly before he started ranting.
"Is this how girls and women get their kicks?! Their sense of superiority? By beating up on males? That's utter bullshit."
"That's because you deserve it!" She pulled her arm away and tried to kick him in the crotch but he turned slightly sideways and blocked it with his knee. It hurt her foot but she wasn't going to admit it. "Guys are such perves!"
"Oh, for the love of- As far as I can see, there's nothing that pleases females enough. They dress up, put on fancy clothes, dab on makeup and then they ask you if they look good, or they strut in front of you. If you respond like a pervert, they get offended, if you don't respond, they'll think you're gay and that their efforts went to waste!"
"You don't know what you're talking about!"
"I spent nearly three years of my life learning from the tutelage of a self-proclaimed king of perverts. I think I know what I'm talking about!" He yelled back. "You just want to beat me up, after you set me up by trying to sound like some kind of loose girl! Are you one? Huh? Cause I don't think I would live with one, you know!" He caught another one of her punches that would have given him a (five minute) black eye and held fast, all the while clenching his own hand over it. His emotion was one of a complete lack of it as he heard her joints start to creak under the pressure.
"Oww! Let go, damn it!"
He let go and sat himself on a roadside bench, glaring all the while. She started letting loose on him, but he never moved. It was as if beating up on a marble statue with flesh. Of course bruises and such appeared, but he never moved; even if a full on punch to the face caught him dead on, his head never moved a centimeter with it. He was stock still. His eyes were open and she could see that he did not have Sage mode on. She continued for another ten or so minutes before she grew tired and bored and plopped herself down on the bench beside him.
"Can't believe that I tried to make friends with someone like you. Hell, made such a fuss about threatening the Hokage and her personal guard when she was gonna have you hauled off to be interrogated and tortured." The blond muttered.
"Well…fine! No one asked for your help! I'll live!" She yelled. On two levels, she suddenly realized that there was a crowd around them and the fact the she honestly regretted acting up. He was a guy, after all. And she had inveigled any perverted-ness he had by teasing him needlessly.
As she stared at him, she noted how all of the 'injuries' that he sustained when she had tried to beat him up gradually disappear right before her eyes. She realized that it was the Kyuubi's doing and realized that it was the reason he took the 'beating' so easily.
"When you caught up to me in the woods, your backpack and your storage sealing scroll fell off."
Her eyes widened in realization. If that's true, then what was she supposed to-
He rolled up his sleeve where she noticed a set of six seals tattooed on him arm. He quickly unsealed something from one of them and when the smoke cleared, she was boggled to see her very issue right there in his hand. He quickly slung it over to her, which she caught.
"I hope you find somewhere to sleep tonight."
"What?...What…but…the…huh?"
He got up and started walking away. Before she could even get up, he shunshinned away in a puff of smoke.
=X=X=
He shut his apartment door behind him and sighed. He wondered if he had taken it too far by leaving her alone. He quickly backboned himself. "Hah. She'll live. To think, I was gonna leave my hovel behind and claim my inheritance just to make her comfortable. Now I take on my pop's name to put myself in trouble and she doesn't even realize."
He kicked off his sandals and sat on his bed in a lotus style to meditate. Perfect peace eluded him for a while, but it finally came like a wash, or even more so like a tidal wave, carrying him off to sweet oblivion.
=X=X=
She was still on the bench.
The crowd that had formed around them trickled away, leaving her alone. Deciding to make the most of her situation, she got up and put on her knapsack and scroll in a single fluid moment before walking silently to find a hotel or inn to spend the night in.
Within five minutes, she realized that all she was getting was glares, short and hot responses, or just being ignored. She called to mind that the civilians were still pissed at Suna for the events of the Konoha Crush during which Suna and Oto tried to raze the village and so decided to ask a ninja; hopefully one more sympathetic to her situation.
The ninja had brown hair and a scar across the bridge of his nose but anything extending beyond that was nondescript. She soon got the directions for a hotel but she had to decline when she heard the price. She could have written up a form that they offered that would let her 'pay when she got paid', but she decided to forgo it and find a cheap inn. She soon exhausted all she could find in the area but was turned away when told they were full and had no room.
Night had come on by this time and the village came alive with lights of establishments. Matsuri trudged through the village, barely making her way around the crowding folk that had all the signs of merriment. Her feet ached, her chakra was still low from her earlier exhaustion and above all, her gut cried out for something to eat. She hadn't eaten anything but some dango that morning and from all of her strenuous efforts, her stomach might've been developing ulcers by now from digesting its own lining.
'Well, time to suck up my pride and apologize.' The thought came and lingered, just before she muttered a 'no' to herself. She would not submit! It wasn't as if she was wrong, was she? She didn't think so; if a guy was perverted, he should get his face smashed in. Shouldn't he?
Fantastic. Now she was doubting herself.
She kept on walking without any real direction. She knew that if she stopped, there would be an excellent chance of her just screaming like a lunatic apologizing in a incoherent babble and she wasn't about to let herself do that. It would be an insult to all Gaara had taught her. Come to think of it, Gaara was never perverted. So all those efforts to 'impress a certain guy' as Naruto put it had indeed gone to waste. Did that make her feel unhappy from going unnoticed 'in that way'? Did she want Gaara to act even slightly perverted over her?
The smell of food broke her thoughts suddenly, and assaulted her famished senses like a mugger. Glancing to her left, she saw a rather homely looking stand that by all means served ramen, if the smell was any indication. Hoping that she could purchase a bowl and still find a cheap inn with a place for her to lay her head, she decided to accept the venture.
She eagerly strode over to it and pulled aside one of the privacy flaps before taking a seat on a stool. Glancing to her sides, she saw there was only one other patron almost clear to the other side who was eating his food while reading a pamphlet. She considered trying to start a conversation with the ninja but decided better of it; food came first.
"Can I get some service, please?!" She called.
"Hold on, I'm coming!" A voice answered in the back; female, if the sound was any indication.
Sure enough, in another minute the owner of the voice came into view wearing a fairly standard waitress uniform. The woman herself was quite beautiful in her own simple way, and Matsuri thought that she looked out of place in such an establishment like this. A secretary, maybe?
"Hello! What will you have?" The waitress asked a bit exuberantly.
"Hello. I'd like a bowl of your most purchased ramen, please." She figured that their most popular serving had to be the one that tasted the best. It was simple logic.
"Most purchased?" The ninja in the corner echoed. "I guess that depends." He looked over to Matsuri. "Oh! It's you again. Did you get through?"
She looked over to him as well. "Get through? Wadd'ya mean-" She then realized that it was the same ninja from before who had the scar on his nose. He must have been speaking about her finding the hotel. "No, I didn't."
"Too expensive, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Find any inns?"
"Full."
"Shame."
Ayame reached over the counter and tapped Matsuri's shoulder. "So you want the Miso? Or do you want the 'Porkaholics' ramen?"
"'Porkaholics'?"
"Oh sure. For common laborers who go on and on about meat, and ninja who want to eat some soup that has a bit too much pork for my taste. A lot of people come asking for that." The Konoha ninja explained. "Say, uh, what's your name? Mine's Iruka."
"Matsuri." She obliged. "But if that's the most purchased flavor, then why the choice of Miso?"
Iruka chuckled. "That ramen is most ordered. Miso, that is. One person alone, out-purchases the alternative, even though it's the most purchased by popular demand."
Now it was the waitress's turn to laugh. "Naruto really puts it away, huh Iruka?"
"He does indeed. Pity on all those times I treated him."
Matsuri's world took a dramatic pause as she heard the name before time resumed its normal progression. "Naruto, huh? I know of him."
"Everyone's heard of him. Brash, knuckleheaded, prankster…" Iruka started listing.
"C'mon, you're not giving him enough credit. What about how he's got a heart of gold, those kinds of things. You know, overly kind, too forgiving, self sacrifice…"
Suna's Ambassador heard her stomach growl and decided to just take the Miso. She told Ayame, who immediately retreated to the back, mumbling something about ten minutes. In the meantime, her thoughts once again turned to the blond. "Too forgiving, huh?" She muttered.
Iruka must have heard her. "Oh yeah. That's him. I can't say too much, but his best friend tried to kill him and he looked past that. Something like that happened to me, I probably would have taken on myself to be my best friend's judge, jury and executioner."
The stand grew quiet for a minute and Matsuri felt a need to fill it. "You know, I was supposed to bunk with him. But we had something of a fight."
"You did? That's a shame. I'm just going to theorize that he offered you a place to say, you said some things or did some things he didn't like, and you're too proud to admit your mistake or mistakes to apologize to him, knowing that he'll just forgive you."
"More or less like that." She admitted. "But I told him that I could make it without him."
"Hmm. Ramen is pretty poor fare." Iruka noted. "I just eat it every now and again for sentiments sake. AND you still haven't found a place to sleep. I think you're doing a great job so far."
"I will not submit!"
"Ok, not too sure what that's all about." Iruka answered with a sweat-drop. "But its not a bad thing to admit that you're wrong. If you are the wrong one."
She quickly told him what they fought about and Umino decided to explain a bit of his own.
"He trained with Jiraiya the Toad Sage. While they were still here in the village, the two of them constantly fought about the Sennin's habits of peeking on women in the hot-springs, private baths, assorted bathhouses, under waterfalls, stuff like that. I mean, I respect the man and all for his might, but after what Naruto told me, I lost any respect for anything else of the man's character."
"The Toad Sage is a lecher?!" Matsuri couldn't believe her ears. First the Hokage was a drunk, and the second was a massive pervert, what's next? The third one had a thing for small boys?
"Yeah, pretty much. After a couple days, Jiraiya told Naruto, or so he says to me, that he'll become a pervert like him too, eventually. Hormones and all that. Naruto didn't understand too much about puberty at the time and Naruto swore to never become a perve like him. Says he'll respect women, and all that. Me as a guy know that it's impossible. A guy has to be even slightly perverted. It's the law of life."
"Guess that's why he was so upset with me, or about what happened in Suna." Matsuri mumbled. "It did feel…good being noticed. But not when someone's eyeing me like a piece of meat!"
"That's true, and I accept that. But I'm talking about the perverseness that's responsible for libido for married couples and things like when a couple is becoming intimate. If there isn't perversion, albeit in a small scale, the world would be far less crowded. Understand what I'm saying?"
"Yeah. I understand."
Ayame came back with a bowl of ramen a minute later to find only Iruka sitting by himself. "Where's the girl?"
Iruka looked up. "Oh, she said something about apologizing to someone. Pertaining to the soup, I'll take it off your hands."
Ayame grinned. "Are you turning into a Naruto?"
"I sure hope not."
You know, this chapter was to be about another topic, but I decided that some perversion would be necessary for the story. And since I can't be bothered with writing about Matsuri trying to leave a dent in Naruto's skull every other chapter, I decided to make Matsuri more accepting of it. He's a guy; get over it girl!
Besides, overnight, some news should be spread about someone's status. ;D
Someone, please pray for schedule to fix itself. And don't mutter some kind of magic spell like 'flesruoy xif eludehcs' Cause reversing the words and order doesn't really work. I tried already. :(
Valete omnes,
MRAY 4TW.
