Chapter 20

Coffee and Miscommunication

Italics = English

'Single Quotes' = Thoughts

Edited by: Thomas Drovin

x

"Oi! Ero-sennin! Why the hell do we have to go with you, huh?"

"I told you already brat, we're going to find someone."

"Ehhh! But I don't have time for that!"

Jiraiya sighed impatiently. "Kid, where we're going, you'll end up learning a whole ton more than what Kakashi's taught you."

Naruto eyed him suspiciously before declaring, "No way. I don't need any more hentai-jutsu. I'm going to learn Chidori from Kakashi-sensei!"

By now, I had learned what hentai meant, and as such I was extremely tempted to whack Naruto for even suggesting he had a few hentai-jutsu at all.

"Ah, but the person we're going to find knows a technique better than even the Chidori," Jiraiya said. He gave the blond a sly glance. "Maybe I'll take Sasuke instead…"

Naruto's eyes widened ridiculously as he jumped up and down in excitement. "Wait! Wait! I'll go! AHAHAHA! I'M GOING TO BE INVINCIBLE!" With that, the blond grabbed our wrist and dragged both Jiraiya and me along.

"Um…why I go?" I finally managed to interject into the two ninjas' rambunctious conversation.

"Hm…? Didn't you want to help Anko?" The white haired man asked, giving me a sideways look.

I brightened up immediately and nodded. Eagerly, I hurried up to join pace with Naruto. It was kind of exciting actually. I felt like I was going on a quest to save Anko or something. She was the damsel in distress and I was the knight in shining armor! Naruto's mood was rather infectious...

"Hey! Naruto, Fei, wait up," Sasuke's voice called out from a distance.

At the call behind us, our small group turned around curiously. Jiraiya blinked as he saw both Sakura and Sasuke sprinting in our direction. When they reached us, the two preteens skidded to a stop.

Sasuke casually just stuffed his hands into his pockets, acting as cool as a cucumber. Sakura on the other hand brushed her pink hair out of her face before sighing in relief.

"Whew, we managed to catch up with you," Sakura said with a grin.

"Huh? Sakura-chan, Sasuke?" Naruto asked while looking between the two.

"Dobe. You didn't think we'd let you leave without us did you?" Sasuke grumbled with a glare towards Jiraiya.

Sakura placed her hands on her hips and glared as well. "Yeah, Nee-san is our responsibility. No way are we trusting her to be safe with just you and that pervert guy over there."

"Sakura-chan…" Naruto whined, as he gave his crush sad puppy dog eyes. Sakura just rolled her own eyes and ignored him, though I saw a fond smile on her face.

"Who the heck invited you two?" Jiraiya grumbled.

"We did," Sakura and Sasuke answered in unison.

The white haired ninja just dropped his head in defeat.

When our little group reached Konoha's gate, I slowed down before staring at the huge doors silently. The last time I was out of Konoha I was skewered by Death Cat…Daiki. Inoichi's horror stories about bandits and enemy shinobi still reverberated through my head.

The preteens and Jiraiya, noticing that I'd fallen behind, turned back towards me.

"Nee-san!" Sakura called to me with a bright smile and a friendly beckoning gesture.

"Nee-chan! You're going to be left behind! Come on, no time for day dreaming!" Naruto exclaimed while practically bouncing with enthusiasm.

Sasuke rolled his eyes at his teammates' antics before turning to me with a small smirk, "What's wrong? Scared?" I blushed bright red at the accusation and automatically pushed back up the plastic frame of my fake glasses that were slipping down my nose.

"No!" I exclaimed, though that was kind of a lie.

Either way, I picked up my pace and took my first willing step out of Konoha. Jiraiya grinned and ruffled my hair, which I took great offense to, but I didn't even have to glare as sweet Sakura defended me.

"Hey, hands off!" she barked.

Jiraiya scratched the back of his head wearily. "Oh man, why do I get the feeling you're going to get along splendidly with Hime-chan…" he groaned.

About ten minutes of walking, I realized something.

"Um…Sakura, Sasuke you no bags?" I asked hesitantly as I observed that they seemed to have no supplies on hand other than their usual weapon pouch.

Sakura gave me a reassuring smile. "Don't worry Nee-san! We'll stock up at the next town."

She seemed excited about the future shopping trip, probably because Sasuke would be going with her too. Though her way of expressing her crush on Sasuke had toned down quite a bit, it was clear that the pink haired girl was still infatuated with the boy.

Sasuke sighed at hearing Sakura's obvious enthusiasm.

"Hey Sakura-chan! I'll come shopping with you too!" Naruto offered.

Sakura rolled her eyes as she replied, "Naruto, Fei onee-san will be tired by the time we get to the town. You need to stay with her in our room so that she can rest."

Naruto slumped in defeat. I eyed his pouting fondly. He was so cute sometimes that I just wanted to hug him like a teddy bear.

"Um, Naruto? It's okay, you can go too okay," I offered, but the blond just shook his head and gave me a cheerful grin.

"Nah! Shopping is boring anyways," he dismissed. "Hey, I know! Nee-chan, I'll show you my toads when we get to the town!"

I had no idea what 'toad' meant so I just smiled and nodded, my usual response when I wasn't sure what was being said.

x

I felt rather bad about the slow pace that was set because of me. Apparently, at a steady run, while cutting through the forest occasionally, we could have made it to the town in about thirty minutes. My presence meant that it took over an hour because we had to follow the road that wasn't really a direct path to the nearest town, and because I was pretty dang slow.

When we finally made it to the town, it was decided that we'd spend the night there as apparently Jiraiya wanted to do some research. I wondered what research he was going to do.

'Perhaps he has a tip on where to find this healer?' I theorized while stroking my imaginary goatee. (Sakura refused to let me pull at my hair when I'm thinking so I had to improvise, okay!)

The majority of the town we were at seemed to be catered towards travelers judging by the number of restaurants and hotels I saw. I was walking past one of the smaller tucked away stalls when I smelled something…something delicious. It smelled like ambrosia. It smelled like home.

"Coffee?" I gasped.

Grabbing the nearest preteen, which just happened to be Sasuke, I pulled us over to the stall where a cranky old lady was sitting in front of several small bags of coffee grinds.

Sasuke, whom I'd forgotten about, grunted and pulled his sleeve free of my hold, but I barely noticed. Practically salivating, I wordlessly thrust money towards the old woman. She gave me a humorless smile and silently handed over a bag of coffee that I took with reverent awe.

When I turned around I saw that the others had followed us, and were now eyeing me curiously.

"Nee-chan, what's that?" Naruto asked with a head cocked to one side in question.

"Coffee!" I enthusiastically exclaimed. "We go go go to cook coffee yes!" With that delightful bit of Japanese, I made a grab towards the nearest preteen, again Sasuke, but missed as he dodged. Unperturbed, I grabbed Naruto instead who was more than willing to follow me as we sped away.

My fingers clutched the bag of coffee in a death grip, and embarrassingly, I felt my eyes water up a little. It was ridiculous to get so emotional over coffee, but the small bag of grinds meant more than a drink to me. It was a little piece of home, and it came right when I was missing my family and home more then ever.

x

"I need a room to fit five," Jiraiya drawled lazily while eyeing the preteens.

"Hm…no, I take that back. That brat," he pointed to Naruto, "can sleep in the closet, so a room for four should do it."

"Hey!" Naruto loudly protested.

In the end, Jiraiya had rented a little suite that came with two beds, a tiny kitchen, a connecting bathroom and a little bedroom.

Jiraiya had claimed the bedroom the minute he received the keys. There was a lecherous grin on his face as he muttered something about needing privacy later as he leered at a beautiful girl flirting in his direction.

"Go shop and do chakra exercises or something," he mumbled distractedly as he flung the keys in Naruto's direction to chase after the girl. All four of us sighed as one as we watched him dash away.

Sakura rubbed her forehead as she said, "Okay then, Sasuke-kun and I'll go shopping for supplies. Meanwhile, Naruto, you and Nee-san get settled in okay?" Naruto and I nodded in agreement, and so we split up.

The hotel (or was it a motel? inn? I can never tell) was not as bad as I'd feared. Sure the walls were a bit worn down and it was a bit stuffy in the hallways, but what hotel wasn't? Overall, it looked…decent.

'So far so good.' I thought with an approving little nod.

Our little suite was pretty decent as well. It wasn't huge, and the roof was tilted down, but the two beds were large enough fit two people each. Sakura and I would have to share one bed, but I wasn't too worried about that. Naruto and Sasuke sharing a bed however, was just asking for trouble.

Naruto seemed to be of the same mind as me as he groaned, "I wonder if I can convince Sasuke to take the floor…"

I dropped my bag on one of the beds as I observed the rest of the room. There was a small table and three rickety old chairs by the window. A door led to the small but clean bathroom and another door led to the bedroom. The kitchen was pretty tiny, but it was better than nothing. It was more than enough to cook coffee in.

I went riffling through a cupboard and found a banged up pot. Unfortunately, there was no coffee maker, so I'd have to make mountain coffee.

"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!" I heard behind me. Yelping a little in surprise, I spun around to see a small cloud of smoke from where Naruto had slammed his hand on the ground.

"Yo."

I stared and stared and stared some more. It was a bright orange toad wearing clothes and talking. Talking!

"Why is it talking? Oh my God, it's talking! A talking toad! Animals are sentient here? Holy F-k, I've been eating talking animals!"

"Um…nee-chan? Are you okay?"

"Who's the female?" The toad asked.

"She's Fei nee-chan. I wanted to introduce you to her but…" Naruto gave me an uncertain glance.

I had an epiphany. "Wait! Naruto used a seal to summon him! Maybe he's a special toad? Yeah, special. No one would eat sentient creatures after all...but Pokémon…oh, but that's a work of fiction. Right. Special toad."

Having come to a conclusion I could live with, I gave the toad a little smile and hello. The two of them eyed me skeptically, but shrugged as one.

Scratching the back of his head sheepishly, Naruto said, "So Nee-chan, this is Gamakichi."

"Hey there," Gamakichi the toad greeted.

After a few seconds of silence, I replied, "Hello?"

The three of us stood in the room in awkward silence.

"Soooo," Gamakichi drawled as his eyes flickered around the room for a distraction. "What's that?" he asked as he pointed to the bag of coffee next to him.

I brightened up as I remembered. "Oh! Coffee."

The toad hopped over and took a whiff. Immediately, his face scrunched and he ballooned up.

"What the?" Naruto exclaimed.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-chooooooooooooo!"

A disgusting black blob of something spurted out of Gamakichi's mouth and hit Naruto full on. Poor Naruto's hair and face was completely drenched in some sort of black sticky viscous.

"Blehhh! What the heck is this stuff?" Naruto whined as he tried fruitlessly to wipe the gunk from his eyes.

I hurriedly grabbed a towel from the bathroom and handed it to Naruto. Seeing all the black on the towel after a single wipe made me hope that the hotel wouldn't charge us for completely ruining it.

"This isn't going to wash out easily, will it?" Naruto sighed as he stared forlornly at the towel. He rubbed a strand of his now putrid black hair between two fingers and winced when he literally heard it squish with moisture.

"Um…" Gamakichi stammered as he shifted from one webbed foot to another. "It probably has some oil in it so no. Hehehe…" The orange toad's nervous laugh faded into strained silence when he noticed Naruto's pinched expression.

"…Bye!" With a poof the toad disappeared as abruptly as he appeared.

I stared at the empty space for about five seconds before I muttered, "Summons. It must be a spirit summoning like in that one book Amulet of Samarkanada, Smuckando, Smellakan? Meh, something like that."

The whole concept of summoning was extremely fascinating to me, more than even the idea of teleporting or cloning myself. I'd always had a weakness to the idea of powerful creatures coming to your aid, hence why I enjoyed Pokemon as much as I had.

Naruto ignored my little 'OMG' moment and instead ambled his way into the bathroom with a, "I'm going to take a shower first Nee-chan!"

There was some muffled curse words and the squeak of pipes before I finally heard the pitter patter of the shower starting. With a silly grin on my face I too turned towards the faucet. However, my reason was to make coffee!

Mountain coffee is simple and easy to make. It's pretty much adding coffee grind to boiling water. I'd only made this kind of coffee when I went snowshoeing with my parents in the winter, but I swear nothing is more perfect than finally reaching the summit and sitting down in the snow nursing a piping hot cup of coffee.

Some people hike for the exercise or for the view. Some do it for the accomplishment. I do it for the food. Eating food 5000+ feet up in the bitter cold somehow tastes the best.

Anyways, my pot of coffee was on a boil and I was basking in the smell of coffee reminiscing about snowshoeing with parents when there was a knock at the door.

Since I was in the room, I had taken off my fake glasses and contacts because frankly, they were annoying as hell to wear. 'Should I put it on?' I wondered, but shrugged, and decided against it. Truthfully I didn't see the point of the disguise. I highly doubted Kabuto, or any other ninja, would be fooled by my halfhearted costume.

"Yes!" I called out as I padded my way over to the door. For a second, I wondered what I would do if there was someone undesirable outside. Unfortunately, there wasn't a peephole of any sort so I couldn't tell who or what was knocking. Just in case, I stuffed one hand in my pocket and grabbed my weight seal.

Yes, just weight instead of the combination of magnet and weight seal. I suspected that if I could stick the weight seal onto a person it would be the equivalent of dropping an extremely heavy boulder on them. The problem of course would be getting close enough to actually stick it on. Plus, if it only got on their clothes, it might not work as well as they could just take off the affected clothing.

Carefully, I cracked open the door and peaked out. My first sight was red clouds on a black cloth. My gaze flickered up the tall figure to the face.

'Red sharingan?' I noticed.

'Oh! He's a Uchiha.' I observed the dark hair and fine features of the stranger before I realized that the man looked a lot like Sasuke. My gaze rose up to his forehead where I was relieved to see Konoha's symbol, though the scratch was slightly puzzling.

Sasuke's relative (perhaps even brother?) was rather intimidating, but considering that he was probably here because Sasuke had followed us on the trip without notice, I dismissed my unease. No doubt he was annoyed at Sasuke for his sudden departure.

The huge um…blue man standing behind Sasuke's relative, I only peeked at before I decided to refrain from looking at him. The quick glance of him I had seen was terrifying, plus I didn't have the confidence not to stare. What if he got angry with me for being unable to look away! I'd never seen a blue man before and frankly, I was fascinated, but decided to avoid being accidentally rude.

"Oh!" I exclaimed as I noticed the dark haired man's similarity to Sasuke. "Sasuke's brother?" I asked. The man didn't even change his expression as he nodded.

Though I was unnerved about the constant use of sharingan, I decided it wasn't really my business. After all, he was Sasuke's brother, and from Konoha to boot. I had no reason to question his proclivity towards staring at people with magic eyes.

I gave the blue man a hesitant look, but quickly averted my gaze when he gave me a toothy grin full of razor sharp teeth. Smiling as politely as I could, I stepped out of the way and opened up the door fully.

"Come in," I invited.

The blue man chuckled as he said, "Why thank you. She's a polite one isn't she Itachi?"

The dark haired man who I surmised was Itachi didn't respond. Instead he smoothly stepped into the room with blue man behind him.

'He's not much of a talker is he?' I thought with a sigh. Trying to break the awkward silence, I ushered the two over to the small table and gestured for them to sit down.

Cheerfully, I informed our guests, "No tea, but there is coffee!" with a winning grin.

Keeping on a nervous little smile, I bounced over to my bubbling coffee to pour some out for the three of us. I didn't pour one for Naruto as I figured it would still be awhile before he finished his shower.

As if he read my mind, Itachi asked in a smooth voice, "Where is Naruto-kun?"

Itachi's sudden decision to talk startled me, but luckily, I didn't drop the coffee.

When I had carefully set the coffee onto the table and slipped into the remaining chair, I finally answered Itachi's question.

"Naruto is in bathroom." I informed him, though I suspected he knew already and was just asking me for the sake of asking. Itachi adding the 'kun' to Naruto's name helped me to relax a little. It seemed that he was on familiar terms with Naruto. Perhaps Naruto and Sakura went over to Sasuke's house sometimes to hang out?

Figuring I might as well compliment Sasuke, I turned to Itachi. "Sasuke is good boy." I informed Itachi with a nod. "Very smart. Very handsome. Very, um…fantastic! Yes," I assured Sasuke's brother, "really good boy and good shinobi."

There was only silence to my glowing praises for Sasuke. Perhaps I had laid it on a bit too thick?

Seeing as Itachi had turned to stone, I peeked a glance at the blue man instead, but blinked rapidly before turning my gaze back to my cup of coffee as I saw him staring at me intently. Repressing a shudder of unease, I took a sip from my cup. It was rather bitter, but wasn't bad all things considered. Yes, definitely not bad at all.

A rather stupid smile of bliss must have been on my face because blue man curiously picked up the tiny cup in his massive hand before knocking down the boiling hot drink like it was sake or something. The grimace of disgust he made afterwards made me giggle slightly.

"Kami, this is disgusting," he grumbled. "Hey, Itachi, try some of this."

In response, Itachi blinked once slowly before raising his cup to take a small sip. Blue man raised one eyebrow and stared expectantly at Itachi, but there was no response.

I was getting the impression that Itachi was a robot. I really hoped Sasuke wouldn't become as bad as Itachi in the future because then I might cry and become depressed.

I gave the two men an apologetic glance. "Sorry, this drink is bitter." (1)

Kisame stiffened, and Itachi's sharingan started to spin. A huge pressure of chakra squeezed me, leaving me shuddering and gasping.

"HEY! WHAT'S GOING ON OUT THERE?" Naruto yelled from the bathroom. The water stopped and there was a few bangs and curses.

"You put poison into the drink?" Itachi asked softly. Despite his calm tone, I was absolutely terrified.

Not knowing what Itachi was asking, I decided to do my usual default action when I was confused. I nodded and smiled, though this time my smile was weak and shaky.

Faster than I could blink, I was pressed up against the wall with a kunai to my throat. Itachi was holding me roughly by my hair. When I reached down towards my pocket, he broke my arm with a quick and efficient knee kick.

My scream of pain mixed together with the furious yelling from Naruto who had just exited from the bathroom, only half dressed and his hair still partly soapy and black.

'Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.'

Through blurry eyes, I could see Naruto as pale as sheet as he tried and failed to call up his chakra. I didn't know what was going on with him, but whatever it was meant he was helpless.

"Naruto. Jiraiya." I croaked out, but the stubborn little idiot refused to leave. Instead, he charged straight at the blue man who was sniffing the cup of coffee.

"Kisame." Itachi droned out, his gaze drifting to his left where the blue man was smashing Naruto into the ground.

"It's clean. No poison," he replied.

Itachi turned his sharingan eyes back to me, but the door crashing open distracted him.

Pulling me along by my hair, Itachi turned around to face the door completely. Held by Itachi by the hair with a kunai to my throat and a broken right arm, I made a pitiful sight.

I might have been feeling miserable, but what I saw when I was forcibly dragged around chilled my bones.

Sasuke and Sakura were standing in the doorway, but I barely even noticed the pink-haired girl. No, my full attention was on Sasuke.

The boy's expression was slowly twisting into one of sheer fury. Though Sasuke usually always had a blank or annoyed expression on, there usually was a softness underneath that kept me from being scared or nervous around him. There was no softness anymore; all that was left was a wild black desperation, an expression of a trapped feral wolf with spinning red eyes.

"Nee-san. Naruto," Sakura whispered shakily, her green eyes wide with confusion and fear.

Sasuke seemed to notice Naruto and me for the first time. Our eyes met and I saw a flicker of what I thought might have been helplessness in his gaze, before he turned his focus back to Itachi.

"Itachi," Sasuke hissed the name like it was poison dripping from his mouth, "Let her go."

"Oh F-k me. I invited the devil and his blue friend in for some coffee didn't I? I'm such a f-king moron."

x

Read this note or you will be confused:

(1.) Fay meant to say: "Sorry, this drink is bitter" or "Gomenasai, kono nomimono wa nigai." Nigai = bitter.

However, she misspoke and said Kigai instead, which means danger, harm, injury. Essentially, she said something along the lines of, "Sorry, this drink is danger/harm/injury."

A/N: Thank you for all the support everyone! If anyone didn't receive a reply to their review from the last chapter, I sincerely apologize. Fanfiction emails are glitching like crazy for me.

This chapter is a bit shorter because I broke a few fingers. I'm on the mend though!

Oh, and if you're wondering why Fay is always being beaten up, held hostage, and half killed, the reason is very simple, she's an easy target.

Thanks again!