Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. Vurt belongs to Jeff Noon.

Vurt Ninjas 10: In which nothing waits for the handbasket to go to hell.
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-

When Sakura returned to the apartment after work, she found Naruto and Sasuke trying to kill each other.

Once Naruto had gotten past the deep freeze that Kabuto's words had sent him into, he'd thrown himself out of the chair and torn down the hall after him. He'd wound up crashing the both of them into the studio door when he'd half-tackled the guy, which had opened and spilled them into the room, disrupting Jiraiya's filming and freaking out the actress.

Kabuto--after Naruto had let go of his shirt collar and let him stand up--had said that he'd only borrowed the name; all three of the sannin were imprintable characters.

Jiraiya had found that one of the silver feathers Kabuto was carrying had snapped and tossed Naruto out of the building at that point. He broke more than a few speed limits on his way back to the apartment, then dragged Sasuke out of bed and punched him in the stomach. The fight had moved into the hall before Sasuke'd woken up enough to make sense of what Naruto was yelling at him--and that's when the furniture started getting damaged.

Sakura shrieked and shielded herself behind the door when Naruto was thrown back-first against the wall beside it. When he shoved himself away and at Sasuke again, who was waiting in a defensive position, Sakura darted inside, slammed the door shut, and then ran for the relative safety of the kitchen. The kitchen attached directly to the living room, but the table was solid enough to be a decent barrier between them and her.

"God, you guys--" and then she noticed that Sasuke was bleeding badly from his left collarbone. With his back to her, it was obvious that it was a bite.

Sakura stared, then shivered once and slipped her purse off her shoulder.

"Hey, Naruto! Sasuke, guys! HEY!" When they continued to ignore her and Sasuke tried to kick Naruto in the side of the knee, only to get his leg grabbed and flung up, Sakura threw her purse over their heads.

It bounced off the blinds, making a loud crash and thankfully not breaking the glass. Naruto pulled away, slightly, but didn't look at her. Sasuke flipped himself back up onto his feet, watching Naruto.

"What the hell, you guys!" Sakura demanded.

"Why don't you ask Sasuke?" Naruto replied, snarling and drawling out the words with a kind of sarcasm that Sakura had never heard him use before.

"Shut the fuck up," Sasuke said, as tersely as was possible while panting.

"What are you gonna do about it, kittling?"

Sasuke's lips thinned, and then he swung a leg at Naruto's knee again. When Naruto caught it, Sasuke threw himself into the twist, balancing on his hands, and kicked him in the side of the head. Naruto let go as he crashed backward. Sakura cringed away.

She wasn't an expert on fighting techniques, but she was an expert on anatomy. And while Naruto was just punching what he could reach, Sasuke was going for all the body's most vulnerable areas: the temple, the nose, the side of the knee.

Sakura curled her hands around the back of the chair nearest to her. "Guys!" she half-screamed, and watched as they ignored her again.

When Naruto was close enough to Sasuke that he'd managed to force the other man to his knees on the floor, even though it left him near enough that Sasuke could get a good strike in on the tender area below his ribs, Sakura tried not to think too much about what she was doing. And then she swung the chair around and slammed it as hard as she could into their shoulders.

One of the legs cracked, and the both of them crashed to the floor.

Naruto got back on his feet first, glaring at her. Sakura backed a few steps away, brandishing the chair between them, and then held it between her and Sasuke when he picked himself back up, because if she had to choose she trusted Sasuke less than Naruto.

Sasuke just stared at her, coughing slightly on the blood he'd swallowed from his split lip. Sakura shifted the chair back between her and Naruto, because at least Sasuke wasn't crouching slightly like he was going to jump.

No one spoke.

When the only sound for several long seconds was the ticking of Sakura's wristwatch, she swallowed and said, "Quit it, guys. Naruto, Sasuke--you're scaring me."

Naruto wavered slightly, almost straightening again. Sakura took a risk and removed the volatile element: "Sasuke," she said in the most matter-of-fact voice she could manage, "go wash that off before it gets infected."

Sasuke half-lifted a hand to his bleeding shoulder, then sneered and dropped it. He backed his way to the hall and the bathroom, not letting Naruto out of his sight.

A few seconds after the door closed, Naruto sat down on the carpet. Sakura set the chair back on the floor, then pushed it down a little. The leg cracked ominously, so she sat down on a different one.

". . . It wasn't--" he began.

"I don't care," Sakura replied tiredly, shrugging out of her light jacket. Naruto looked down at the ground.

A moment later, Sakura pushed her sleeves up over her elbows as well; her heart had been beating fast enough that the whole room felt too hot. She pressed a hand against her forehead, staring at the table, before looking over at Naruto.

"Can you bring me my purse?" she asked quietly.

When he held it out to her, she ignored it and caught his chin instead, tilting his head to get a better view of the area Sasuke had kicked. It was already giving indications that it would bruise, so Sakura sighed and took the purse.

"Here, kneel," she told him, as she opened it and fished around for the small flashlight she carried.
-

After she'd checked that he didn't have a concussion, Sakura knocked on the bathroom door until Sasuke let her in and let her tape the bandage on properly. He went back to the bedroom without answering her questions or speaking, however, so she gave up on him and returned to the living room.

Naruto was lying on the couch, holding a baggie of ice against his temple and grimacing slightly. Sakura sat by his feet and tried not to feel sorry for him.

"What happened?" she asked, keeping her voice low enough that Sasuke wouldn't hear it.

Naruto started to answer, and then stopped and shook his head. Sakura couldn't get any more than that out of him; and less than fifteen minutes later, Sasuke came out of the bedroom, which cut her off in the middle of trying.

Sasuke stalked through the living room, favoring the leg that Naruto had twisted, and was almost at the front door before Naruto had rolled off the couch and stood up. Sakura grabbed his wrist, but he yanked free.

"Hey! Sasuke, don't--"

Sasuke threw the door open and didn't bother to shut it as he stormed out. Naruto took off after him.

"Don't jump the--dammit!"

Sakura had followed them; she leaned out over the platform railing, but Sasuke was already on the second floor flight and Naruto had reached the third.

Sakura pressed her hands to her face, shoved her hair back, and then went back into the apartment and kicked the door shut.

There were bloodstains on the carpet, she noticed, as she crossed over to the table. She hoped Sasuke really had washed off that bite--they didn't clean often enough for him to be okay getting it rubbed against the ground.

She'd fished out her cell phone and already hit Ino's number before the irritation and urge to cut the call off set in. Sakura tried to ignore it long enough for Ino to pick up, so she could focus on the subtle differences between the way the person and the Vurt character spoke.

There was a click, and then: "Hey, Sakura," Ino said. Her voice was slightly distant, distracted, like she was trying to do something else at the same time. "What's up?"

"I. . . ." She fiddled with the clasp of her purse.

There was a long pause, and when Ino spoke again, her voice was clearer. "Sakura? What's wrong?"

Sakura sat down in the uncracked chair. ". . . how do you get blood out of carpet?" she asked quietly. "I always made the guys do it before."
-

When Ino reached the apartment twenty minutes later, as fast as she could in traffic, it didn't look as bad as she'd imagined. Sakura had fixed the blinds again, shoved the couch back into place, picked up and straightened the coat rack, and poured baking soda on the bloodstains. She'd looked through the cabinets for wood glue, but on finding none, had just pulled the damaged chair away from the table.

There was something about the room, though, and the tired, slightly sick expression Sakura was trying to hide that made Ino put her hands on her hips. "Let's go."

"Huh? --No, Ino, I'm not leav--"

"We're going to get dinner," Ino replied. "You haven't eaten since you got off work, have you? You called too soon."

"I . . . yeah. Okay. Thanks."
-

There was a small deli several streets down from the strip club where Ino worked, and not too far from Sakura's apartment; since she only had about an hour before she had to go in, she took the other woman there.

Sakura hadn't said anything in the car, just stared out the window, so Ino turned up the radio and sang along and yelled at the other drivers regardless of who was in the wrong. She was willing to hold off questions until Sakura had smiled at least twice and had something to eat.

"Augh, here again?" Sakura said, after they'd stolen someone's parking space and were coming up the sidewalk to the place. "They're always so slow after they changed ownership."

"But cheap!" Ino replied cheerily. She glanced over. "You said you'd quit selling for a while, didn't you? How are you going to get back into medical school if you don't save?"

Sakura exhaled, glancing up at the sky, before pulling the door open. Ino gave her an 'I win' look as she passed.

The deli was half-full, though it was close to closing; the teenager behind the counter looked like he was wishing very unpleasant things upon them for coming in.

Sakura glanced at the menu along the wall, and Ino leaned against the counter. "I want a baked sweet potato," she told him. "Butter and brown sugar."

"Ooh, me too," Sakura added. "No butter, please."

"We're out of sweet potatoes," the teenager replied.

Ino waved a hand negligently. "Same as usual. Go ahead and microwave them; we'll wait."

"No, we're totally out of sweet potatoes," he deadpanned. "There was a potato blight. There's probably no more sweet potatoes in the whole city."

"Ichiro, quit that!" a woman yelled from the kitchen.

The teenager rolled his eyes and looked at them again.

". . . I'll have a salad," Sakura said.

"I'll have a sweet potato," Ino added with a bright grin. "Butter and brown sugar."

He returned her smile with a touch more viciousness and went into the kitchen.

"He's going to burn it," Sakura warned her, after they'd paid and settled at a table to wait.

"Then I'll send it back and make him do it right," she replied.

Sakura rolled her eyes. "You shouldn't torture the servers, Ino."

"Hey, I'm going to have to go put up with a bunch of horny assholes after this," Ino retorted. "I have to have a little fun somehow."

"Have. . . ." Sakura rested her forehead on a palm. "You're going to turn into a man-hater if you keep this job any longer. And then since Shikamaru's a misogynist, you two will have the worst relationship ever."

"Psh," Ino replied, "we already do," and picked up Sakura's cup before going to get their drinks.
-

Sakura had fallen into moody silence again in all of the thirty seconds Ino took to fill the cups. It would have been frustrating, if she hadn't been worried.

After four minutes, though, when Sakura had done nothing but push her salad around on the plate, it became frustrated worry.

"Okay," Ino said, wiping her lips and dropping the napkin on her plate before folding her hands and resting her chin on them, "spill. Now."

"It's. . . ." Sakura shook her head. "I'm just . . . tired. They keep fighting more and more, and if it's not one thing it's another."

"You know you're welcome at our apartment," Ino replied. "Maybe you should just leave again for a while."

Sakura shook her head tightly, before pressing her fingers to her temples. "I can't leave. I'll come back and Sasuke will have really hurt him, I know it. Naruto says he's been regressing."

She frowned. "Regressing?"

Sakura pressed her fingers harder against her skin, closing her eyes. "He used to be really violent. Naruto says he's calmed down a lot since they got together."

Ino snorted disbelievingly, and then blinked in confused surprise when Sakura flashed her an angry look. The other woman looked back down at the table before Ino was certain she saw it, though.

"Naruto's been worse, too," Sakura added a moment later, after the uncomfortable pause. Her voice cracked as she went on. "They won't stop fighting, Ino. It's never been like this before. They were always fighting, but that was wrestling, and now. . . . Something's going wrong and I know why but I don't know how to make it stop and they're not help--!"

Sakura realized she was starting to cry, let out a frustrated half-scream, and then ground the heels of her hands against her eyes with a brutality that made Ino start.

"Sakura!" she exclaimed, leaning over the table and pulling the other woman's hands away.

"I'm not crying!" she snapped. "I'm not--dammit, I will not be like that stupid little worthless girl!"

"O . . . kay," Ino murmured. "All right, Sakura, we're going to leave the crowded restaurant now, come on. . . ."

Sakura slid out of her chair when Ino tugged on her wrist again, but she was pressing her free hand against an eye again. Ino snatched a stack of napkins off a table as they passed, the man sitting there letting it go with a half-hearted and slightly embarrassed "Hey."

When they reached the car again, Sakura slumped against it once Ino let go of her wrist. She sunk to the ground a second later, so Ino quit trying to unlock the door and sat down next to her.

"I'm scared," Sakura whispered. "I don't like going home anymore. I'm scared that Sasuke's going to hit me." Ino tensed at that, but Sakura didn't notice. "I'm afraid to have sex with Naruto anymore. I'm--" She twisted around enough to press her face against Ino's shoulder. "It's that stupid game, that goddamn fucking game's fault, but I'm afraid of losing him. I'm so sick of everything. I want them to stop fighting and I want to stop being scared but I don't know how to fix it! I don't know what to do!"

Sakura fell silent after that, then hiccupped once and finally took the napkins from Ino's hand. She pressed the whole wad against her eyes, and let out another shuddering breath.

Ino had been absently stroking her hair for the last minute, and glaring at the couple who'd walked past them until they finally looked away. When Sakura finally quit trembling so much, Ino asked quietly, "What game?"

Sakura tensed up at that, started to say something, and then stopped and shook her head sharply.

Ino exhaled, and kept stroking Sakura's hair. After a few seconds, she began brushing it away from the other woman's temple.

"You don't have to say it," she murmured encouragingly. "Just let me read it. Okay?"

Sakura didn't reply at first; but finally, after half a minute, she pressed her forehead harder against Ino's shoulder and nodded once.
-

When Ino was finished reading everything Sakura thought and remembered about Konoha, she wasn't sure what to say--not for a lack of things that needed to be said, but because she didn't know where to start. 'Jesus fucking Christ, girl!' seemed tactless.

Then again, this was Ino.

"Jesus," she finally muttered, letting her arm drop around Sakura's shoulders. "And you were the one who was always 'I can't play because I'm grounded, Ino,' 'I'm not going to skip class for the mall, Ino,' 'I don't think you should run away from home, Ino,' 'I'm not going to get that tattoo, Ino.' And now you've shacked up with a half-dog and a freak of nature and gotten into this." She blew her bangs out of her face and gave Sakura a knowing look. "This is what happens when you don't have fun as a kid. It comes back to haunt you."

Sakura snorted once, then chuckled breathily a couple times. Ino hugged her shoulders.

Sakura finally pulled away a little after that, and began wiping off her face with the napkins that weren't already damp. Ino pulled her legs up to her chest and folded her arms on her knees, watching her.

"That's why you haven't been calling me lately?" she asked.

Sakura hesitated again, and nodded. "Yeah. I . . . sorry."

"Why don't you just refuse to play again?" Ino suggested. "Naruto, that guy's not the type to face rape, right? And I'll kill Sasuke if he tries. Promise. Shikamaru can get me out without bail."

Sakura snorted again, but this time it was tired. "Because . . . that game, it's. . . . You saw we tried."

Ino frowned, looking at Sakura staring at the napkins in her hands. "So why don't you stop buying them? You can't play what's not there."

Sakura made a small 'it's out of my control' gesture with her head and shoulders. "Naruto's the one who buys them, from some guy he works with."

"Then make him stop."

"It's not that easy."

Ino exhaled heavily. "Have you talked to the guy he's buying them from? Asked him to stop selling them? If you claim you're going to be broke and begging from a homeless hole soon--"

"--He won't care, as long as Naruto can keep giving him money," Sakura interrupted. "These are feather makers."

"I could loan you one of my shirts when you go?" Ino offered. Sakura gave her a look. She just raised an eyebrow and tilted her head slightly.

Sakura huffed and looked back at the blacktop. A few moments after that, she glanced up at the sky. "What time is it?"

Ino rolled her eyes. "Don't change the subject."

"You're going to be late, aren't you?" Sakura pointed out, wadding the napkins together and then throwing them underneath the car next to them.

She shrugged. "I don't think I'm on until the second set, anyway."

"Sorry. . . ."

"Whatever," Ino replied. "If they're stupid enough to fire me, I'll just go work somewhere else." She stood up, brushing off the back of her skirt with one hand and holding out the other to Sakura. "Do you want to come with me?"

Sakura pushed herself up and let go of Ino wrist. "No, I . . . I should go back, I'm tired. And wouldn't it be weird for me to be there?"

"You could just hang out in the back until I'm done," Ino replied, fishing the keys out of her coat pocket. "Are you sure you should head back, after that?"

"Yeah," Sakura said. "Yeah. They've probably beaten the hell out of each other now, and if I don't make Naruto disinfect his wounds, he just licks them and goes on to whatever else he was--no, Ino, I can walk; you're late enough," she said, when the other woman started unlocking the door on her side.

"I'm driving you home," Ino replied, "and if you don't like it you can complain on the way. Now get in."

Sakura made an exasperated noise, but opened the door gratefully.