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A/N: Sorry about the delay. Work and writer's block are a bad combination. Short chapter. Spoiler warning! No flames!
Tomorrow's Promise
Chapter 10: Nightfall
After dinner, Sakura stayed over. Naruto made a pot of green tea which he served, refusing to let her touch anything.
"You did more than enough today, Sakura-chan!" he told her when she tried to convince him to let her help. She sat on the couch, pulling the afghan around her, glad that he had furnished his apartment properly after it was rebuilt following Pein's attack. Naruto came over to her with a tea tray in his hands. He poured her some tea, which she accepted.
"You're cold." he noted. It was a mystery how girls always seemed to be cold at the most unusual times. Although it was cold and rainy outside, his apartment was warm. So, he did the only logical thing he could think of, he sat down next to her and pulled her closer.
"Any warmer?" Sakura smiled.
"A little." She removed the afghan from herself and threw it over herself and Naruto so they were literally hip-to-hip. The blond wrapped his arms around her.
"This is much better," she commented.
"So what do we do now?" asked Naruto. Instead of responding, Sakura leaned over and kissed him. The blond took the hint.
"Troublesome," commented Shikamaru as he glanced upon the woman in the bed next to him. Here in her apartment, he and Temari were free to do as they pleased. The Suna Jounin smiled as she traced a pattern on his bare chest.
"How am I troublesome?" she asked. "You're the one who climbed into my brother's bedroom in Suna." The Konoha shinobi winced at the recent memory.
"I was trying to forget that," the genius commented. The blond laughed.
"I think Chouji and Naruto will be telling that story for years!" Shikamaru sighed, knowing that his girlfriend was right. He wouldn't put it past them to tell his children and grandchildren this particular story. Blackmail was beyond him; it was too troublesome.
"I know you don't mean it when you call me that. You also call your mother and your teammate troublesome," she commented. She snuggled closer to him. Rainy nights were a new experience for her, but if this was their effect, she would arrange to spend the entire rainy season in Konohagakure.
Sai relaxed when he was creating his art. His brush pen and sketchbook in hand and all was good with the world. Tonight his focus was the beautiful kunoichi in front of him. Every detail of her form was copied onto the page and his mind from the curve of her hips to her dark brown hair to the ANBU tattoo on her right arm.
"You like what you see," she teased. The artist ninja gave no reply beyond a small smile on his face.
"You've known that for years, Usagi-chan."
"So stoic. Like a true Root ninja. No wonder you spent so long as Danzo's pet!" The brunette was one of the few who could mock him like that and get away with it.
"You were once one too," he retorted. She flinched, remembering why she had left Root.
Sai's expression softened, remembering why she had left. He dropped his sketchpad and held her like he had the night after that the many previous decisions of his master that he now questioned, the one he could have never forgiven the elder for was sending Usagi on that mission that had broken her completely. He remembered that night when he had first discovered that even they were not beyond emotions, they only repressed them. Of course, the next morning his training had kicked-in and he had pretended it hadn't happened, ignoring her.
"I couldn't be a tool anymore. I wanted to know what it was like to be human. You did too after that failed assasination mission a year later."
"That is why I served Tsunade-sama as a double-agent after that mission." The kunoichi gasped. She had thought that despite his desire to leave the organization until its recent collaspe, that he was still loyal to Danzo.
"S-ranked?" she asked.
"Of course," he whispered into her ear.