All things Naruto belong to Masashi Kishimoto. Dwellin just sublets his world.


Chapter 9


Karin tripped, growled out a curse and then readjusted her grip on the waist of the loaner pants she had been given. Even with the bottom edges rolled up they still dragged along the ground. Several times she had tripped already that morning.

On top of that, she had dressed hurriedly without drying off causing her clothes to stick to her uncomfortably. On top of that, when she ran the one free hand available over her wet hair, she could feel snarls and knew it was going to be a battle to get them untangled.

Tripping a second time, she snarled under her breath, "Stupid damn pants! Leaf nin-jerk-heads!"

Despite the fact that the previous day both Uzumaki's had managed to talk the jounin into putting off the intended bath and wash day, it had only been a reprieve of a mere twenty-four hours. She didn't have long to try and hatch an escape plan.

Even with only one visible eye Kakashi had pinpointed the two with a firm, unbending stare, letting them both know that this was going to happen. He then insisted they hand over their clothes. Neither Uzumaki had dared to protest when he thrust clean clothes into their arms.

Each retreated behind a bush of choice to change out of their filthy clothes before heading for the stream. Naruto had changed into a clean set of orange clothes; no surprise there, while she had been offered the choice between two sets of outfits, one orange and the other navy blue.

While her clothes desperately needed to be washed, she had been reluctant to part with them.

It was quite simple, what female in her right mind would cheerfully hand over her only set of clothing into the hands of the enemy, especially male enemy?

The second insult to injury had been the loan of the Leaf ninja uniform she had been given. As disconcerting as that had been, it was the lesser of two evils considering what her other option had been.

At the time, when she picked the navy blue uniform Naruto gave her a sad puppy-dog look, but despite how he felt about it, there was no way she was going to pick the "Look-at-me-I-glow-in-the-dark" orange of the fox host. What kind of ninja would wear such a construction-cone color, especially in a forest?

And while she was on the subject, what reason could there possibly be for the Copy Ninja to deny her a belt? It didn't even have to be a real belt, but Kakashi had only shaken his head when she had pointed out that all they had to do was cut off a piece of rope for her to use. Apparently that was an unnecessary use of their precious rope supply.

It had occurred to her that this might be a clever ruse on their part to keep her from escaping. Kakashi probably was expecting her to do just exactly that but dressing her in clothes too big? Damn but it was effective.

Right now both were out of the camp. He of the masked face was somewhere nearby doing who knew what while Naruto was off taking a bath in the large stream she had found in her first unsuccessful escape attempt. The blond teen would be a while since he was also washing the dirty laundry.

To keep the borrowed pants from sliding down the redhead had to keep a grip on the waistband at all times that soon presented a logistic problem. She only had one hand free with which to dry her hair.

Karin sat down on, what she had come to consider as her log, to better work on drying her hair with one free hand. She quickly found that it was a pain switching hands back and forth to fluff the hair on all sides of her head. Not only that, but to her annoyance, her fingers kept getting stuck in the tangles and freeing them wasn't easy without use of her other hand.

Finally, giving up on the detangling as the impossible task that it was, Karin had a thought (more of a hope really) and began patting at the pockets of the borrowed pants. Maybe, just maybe silver spikes kept a…

There it was! Eureka! With a triumphant grin on her face, the redhead pulled a comb from the back pocket. Never before had she ever greeted a grooming tool with such joy, absently noting that it was curious shade of hot pink.

With a happy sigh, she began running the comb over her head…and hit the first tangle. There it stuck fast. Karin told herself to work slowly and patiently if she was going to get it loosened.

Slowly she labored at it, holding onto the comb with one hand while a working a finger here or there trying to loosen the hair enough to free the comb. Every once in a while she would forget and lift her other hand to help out. That's when the waist would droop and hang down around her hips forcing her to snatch them up while furtively glancing about to make sure no one had seen.

Thus began a long, involved process of combing, hitting a snarl of tangled mane, free the hand, drop the pants, snatch them up again, free the comb, all accompanied with the most colorful invective of a mind colored by experiences in the insane asylum known as Orochimaru's lair.

Suddenly her patience snapped. "Curse-spawned tangles from hell!"

Face red with frustration, the redhead drew back her arm about to hurl the comb in a fit of temper when a gloved hand wrapped around her slender wrist and held her arm immobile in a firm above her head.

Gently the Leaf jounin pried the comb out of her hand. It wasn't too difficult as her fingers had gone lax in surprise when his larger, more masculine one had enfolded around hers. Once he had freed the comb from her nerveless fingers and slid it into his pocket, Kakashi lifted the towel off Karin's shoulders.

"Huh?" Confused, she twisted her head back and forth trying to figure out what he was going to do.

"Comb's mine. I'd hate to lose it. Means a lot to me as I won it when I was a Genin." He said while gently rubbing the towel over her head.

"Why pink?" She said, and then sneered, "Who gives a plastic comb as a prize to a ninja, even a Genin?"

"What, think it should be a blue ribbon or a gold medal?"

"Value of effort should be rewarded by value of prize."

"Value is in the eye of the beholder. Besides I needed a new comb at the time and you have no idea what I did to win this."

"I don't want to know; it's probably a stupid story. What I can't figure out is why you would keep it."

"I assure you," he said easily, "it's only so it can be spotted easily should a sulky kunoichi happen to fling it into the underbrush. Besides, pink is a very manly color." Finishing with the toweling, he laid the tower across her shoulders and pulled the comb from his pocket.

"I do not sulk!" She tried to cross her arms and realized it would cost her the precarious hold on the waistband. Abandoning that, she explained, in a lofty tone, "I meditate physically, with enthusiasm."

"Hm, is that so? Okay, so maybe I'll give you that pink may not be considered manly exactly, but it doesn't detract from the fact that it is an easy color to find."

"Try orange."

"No thanks, if I get an orange one, Naruto will take a liking to it and claim it as his. So no, gonna stay with tried-and-true pink."

"You're weird. The metal color of your hair must be toxic. It's leached into your brain and poisoned it."

The Copy Ninja just shrugged and lifted the comb up to the one uncovered eye as if thoughtfully inspecting it. Then he lifted a strand of reddish hair made dark auburn by the water and began to manipulate the comb through the length, pulling it through the strands of damp hair

"Wh.. what are…." asked Karin in surprise and then suddenly didn't care. Her whole body relaxed. It was then she realized just how tightly coiled she had been for a very long time. Having one's hair combed was a pleasure that there were few words for and the tension slowly seeped from her body.

"So, I take it you don't like pink? What, too girly for you?"

This time it was her turn to shrug. Pink, orange, purple, whatever color of comb, none of it really mattered as long as she was on the receiving end of this fan-bliss-tastic hair treatment.

"I'm color-blind; just keep doing what you're doing comb-boy." She ended that with a sigh of contentment.

"That would be comb-man to you, to be precise," murmured Kakashi, but he could tell she wasn't listening.

With care and light precision, Kakashi combed, taking note that the girl had calmed without a murmur of protest at having an enemy nin, touch her head.

For her part, Karin's secret pleasure in life was having this done for her; not that anyone she had ever worked with or for had ever discovered that little tidbit about her. If they had known, she'd have been the object of ridicule, the laughingstock of Orochimaru's organization.

Unknown to those who knew her, there were only two times she had let her red mane be touched by another person (outside of her mother that is) and those two times were when visiting a town on her own and she had gone to a salon. They had washed her hair, cut, styled, and then dried it. Then they had done her nails too but that hadn't lasted out the day.

As Kakashi stood behind Karin, he took note that the girl was practically melting from having her hair handled. Very delicately and gently, he worked the tines of the comb through snarls and knots, meticulously untangling each and every one without pulling or tugging much.

As he had walked into camp, he had watched her struggle and when she had moved her arm to hurl away his come, his body had moved without thought. Now he was musing over what had been a totally instinctive action. What had possessed him to catch her hand and then end up combing out the tangles for her?

He frowned in thought as long lean fingers worked swiftly, deftly, and with tender patience until finally the last tangle was unraveled and the soft hair was nearly dry.

He eyed the two unequal sides of her hair, one hanging smooth and straight on one side and the other spikey and choppy as if a demented child had gone at it with a pair of hedge clippers.

The smooth side was longer, hanging down her back, catching the sunlight to throw off glints of burnished red-gold. He had only seen that peculiar effect once before and that had been on Kushina Uzumaki. This girl had the exact same color and texture as Kushina's hair, only shorter. Definitely they were from the same clan, no arguing that, even if the last name itself wasn't a dead giveaway.

Finally he finished and from Karin's light sigh, she knew it too. Yet, one last time he lifted the comb and started at the crown of her head and lightly and leisurely drew back and down, lingering a moment before stepping to softly ask, "That better?"

"Hn," she intoned, sleepily, doing her best to hide the internal shiver that had flashed through her body as the last languid stroke went down the back of her head.

"You'll need a nap before lunch is ready. In fact, be prepared to use a lot of your awake-time sleeping in the next several days. There's no rush, we are going to be here for a while."

"And why is that, Kaka sensei?" Karin asked, staring at the glowing embers that had been allowed to die down after the lunch meal. Use wake-time for sleeping? That sounded ridiculous and slightly ominous.

"Hey, I don't need to hear you call me that even if Naruto still does."

"Well, aren't you special. But you're right, I'm too tired to think straight, I'm gonna take you up on the nap business."

Smothering a yawn, the red-haired girl stood, wobbled over to her sleeping pad and flopped down on it. Not bothering to cover herself with the blanket, she removed her glasses, and put them next to the pillow before rolling on her side and immediately fell into a deep sleep.

"Sweet dreams princess," Kakashi whispered.

Another voice started in accusingly "Hey, what are you…"

"Shhhhh," shushed Kakashi, tilting his head to look over his shoulder at Naruto with a raised finger to his lips, and then with a nod of his head toward the sleeping girl, "Needs her beauty sleep." After a quick inner debate, he moved over Karin's sleeping mat and reached down to cover her with a light blanket before turning his attention back to Naruto.

"Ahh," said Naruto and then quietly moved to place the dry clothes in a pile on a log and arranging the wet ones on a line that had been strung up for this purpose. Then he sat and went through the dry ones, sorting and folding.

"What?" The blonde stopped what he was doing and looked up because he could feel the weight of the jounin's gaze on him.

With hands on hips, Kakashi shook his head woefully at the youth's efforts.

It was obvious that folding was not one of Naruto's ninja skills. He was grabbing pants and shirts and wadding them into a ball shape before tossing them in a pile. If left that way each item would end up being badly wrinkled.

With another shake of his head, Kakashi sat down next to his former student and held out his hand for whatever was at the top of the pile.

With an annoyed grunt, Naruto tossed the first item over to the older man. He watched with growing irritation as the elite ninja folded the article of clothing neatly and quickly and set it on the log to the side of him. Then he gestured for Naruto to toss him another one.

Seeing the hard stare of challenge coming from the teen, Kakashi chuckled, asking, "What? You think you can do any better?"

With a daring half-grin Naruto grabbed one up from the pile while tossing another to Kakashi. "You ready for this? If I beat you at folding, then you have to cook lunch for… Hey! Wait! I didn't say 'go' yet!"

Thus began the unofficial and unrecorded Fierce Ninja Battle of the Folded Clothes. No jutsu allowed.


"How do you know this Hokage-sama?" Sakura asked politely. She stood in front of Tsunade's paper-strewn desk, along with Shikamaru and Sai.

Both had been summoned to receive an update on Kakashi and Naruto's mission to retrieve the escaped prisoner. In the beginning none of them had paid much attention upon hearing the news of the escape. It was very rare for any of them to be assigned to prisoner retrieval missions as it didn't fall into their distinct skill sets. Usually.

Sakura frowned as she listened. Naruto involved in any mission, no matter how simple one may consider it to be, had a way of becoming complicated, quickly.

Even Shikamaru had straightened upon hearing the news. Sai had yet to truly learn how things could easily and often did, go sideways when Naruto was on the scene.

Speaking of Sai, he was looking, per usual as if he was trying to figure out what expression was called for at this meeting. And, as usual, he sported that slight smile that she had found so annoying when she had first met him.

Tsunade leaned back in her chair with a chortle, "Oh, our Kakashi has his ways, doesn't he?"

Sakura frowned. Shikamaru remained motionless and Sai smiled in that odd way of his that gave nothing away.

"So you say," the Nara genius finally responded in an indifferent voice, standing with arms crossed and a bored expression on his face.

Sakura would have turned her attention away except she happened to catch his gaze sliding over to the corner of his eye to look at her. Why was he looking at her? Did she have something on her face? Instinctively she raised a hand and wiped at her cheek.

Since he was still staring, her eyebrows lifted in question but he merely let a hint of a smile touch the edges of his lips before returning his attention back to the Hokage.

Sakura was puzzled.

As if discerning her thoughts, Sakura saw Shikamaru glance at her again to give her a hint of a knowing grin. What was up with him? Deciding to ignore him, she turned back to Tsunade.

Tsunade was watched the three as if waiting for one of them to speak. She knew from experience that Sai rarely asked and if he did, he wasn't what she wanted to know. Shikamaru also rarely asked but that was because he usually had everything figured out at the beginning. Sakura, however, decided to fill in the silence herself instead of waiting on either one of them to do it.

"Fine then Shishou. What do you want the four of us to do?"

Even though Ino wasn't with them, Tsunade had told them before starting that she had chosen four of them for this mission. The odd thing was that she wasn't giving them any details. She merely said that she would leave everything in Kakashi's capable hands.

What the hell? Sakura lowered her head to puzzle this over. Also, why did the four of them have to go and join up Kakashi and Naruto to bring back one prisoner?

Normally, if she was being sent out to meet a team it meant someone was sick or wounded enough to need medical assistance in returning.

"Go and join up to assist in any way that you are asked to," added Tsunade, tilting her head back as if to get a better view of the ceiling. She waved a hand, "You have your orders, go gather whatever you need, then pick up the supplies that are already for you and then be off with you."

The pink-haired medic huffed out an irritated breath. How vague could one get about the mission?

Sakura grimaced and spun on her heel. When she realized Shikamaru wasn't following, she looked back to see him staring down at the Hokage with those black, unreadable eyes. Sai was staring back and forth between the two of them as if fascinated.

"I know what this is about but what I want to know is one thing. Is that archaic order of clan survival going to be pulled out of mothballs?" he asked. He paused and then added, "I don't want to be part of this."

Sakura noted a tension in his voice and wondered at it.

"Noted," Tsunade replied tersely. Her hard eyes meeting and holding Shikamaru's until he finally dropped his gaze.

Sai, who was next to Sakura, leaned in to ask in a whisper, "I don't understand what just happened, do you?"

"Not a clue," responded Sakura. Both snapped their mouths shut when two sets of sharp looks stabbed in their direction.

Sakura was mystified by the subtle undercurrent going on between the two that she, frustratingly, wasn't privy to. She wondered if this is what Sai felt like all the time.

As the three were about to exit, Sai asked, "This is about that prisoner isn't it?"

"More like what she is and where from and what they want to do with her."

"Then why are we involved?"

"Sai!" Sakura hissed, as she exited the door first.

Shikamaru pulled up the rear and shut the door behind him.

"What? It's a valid question," Sai said,

wondering why she was getting upset, this time.

"It is Sakura," said Shikamaru, ignoring Sai's question. "I don't know why the rest of you were chosen but I know why I was. I'll tell you about it after we collect Ino and are on our way."

Sakura sighed. She knew it was useless to press the genius any more. He wouldn't divulge anything until he was good and ready.


A glorious smell filled her nostrils, beckoning her from sleep with its beguiling aroma. Karin Uzumaki returned to consciousness with a cough and her eyes slowly fluttered open.

It took a moment for awareness to also return. Where was she? Oh, yes, memory came back in a flood and she slowly sat up on her pad.

She blinked and then yawned. After rubbing her eyes, she focused on the fuzzy blobs on the other side of the campfire were obviously Naruto and Kakashi.

Patting around, she found her glasses and slid them on. Everything around the area leaped into sharp definition.

Once she could make out her surroundings, she noticed the neatly folded pile of clothes by Kakashi and the not-quite-so-neat one next to Naruto. The blonde was scowling and darting sullen glances at his former sensei that she couldn't interpret. Focusing her attention on the other ninja, she was puzzled to see the visible eye crinkled in amusement.

"Did I miss something?" She asked.

"HE CHEATED!"

"You're just jealous because fabric bends to my will."

Naruto added crossed arms and muttered, "It was unnatural, that's all I'm saying."

"It's a talent, almost a gift you could say."

"Unnatural," Naruto muttered again under his breath.

Karin stared at the both of them, blinked, and then decided that she didn't even want to know.


~Dwellin