'A week…?' she repeated incredulously.

'At least a week, Namikaze-san.' Disapproving nurse told her, still looking rather disapproving. 'The levels of iron in his body were quite low, and it's not something you can just recuperate from immediately after. He's lucky he didn't lapse into hemolytic coma, or get an hemorrhage that wouldn't stop.' Minato was suddenly glad her familiars lacked claws or razor sharp teeth… on their majority.

She had been expecting to be told she would need to stay the night, maybe even a couple days, but a week without him so much as moving from the hospital?

'And can we leave after that?' The nurse gave her such a frown the blonde immediately started wondering if she was somehow related to Tsunade.

'Do you have any urgent mission you need to finish, Namikaze-san?' the older woman asked amiably. Minato could have lied, but the truth was she didn't quite dare to.

'Not really, but-'

'Sabaku-san will need to be kept under watch until the levels of his blood stabilize, and he will still need to have shots regularly for another couple weeks.'

'Then I suggest for you to get comfortable because that young man isn't moving out of here until the doctor says he can.' The woman said, hands on her hips and thrusting out her chest in a way that anyone but Minato would have realized was the woman trying to make a point on regards of their age difference. 'And he's not leaving the village until he can handle the trip.'

Minato would have liked to point out a day and a half trip was hardly something Sabaku wouldn't be able to handle, but as soon as she opened her mouth the nurse narrowed her eyes and the blonde smartly shut her mouth.

'I understand. Thank you for your time and attention, Kasumi-san.' She sighed. For someone who supposedly was in such a hurry to go back to training, Sabaku had quite a knack about wasting time. 'Come on, Kakashi-kun. I need to write to taicho to let him know we won't be back for at least a week-' the prickling on her back indicated that 'disapproving nurse' seemed to be quickly evolving into 'irate nurse' '- or two. Three, maybe. Let's go.'

Daichi took his news just as happily. Which means in silence, and when the nurse finally thought he had heard what she tried to tell him, he showed her a tongue. Thankfully, it was when she was showing him her back, or probably two weeks would turn in a month and rehabilitation.

'As if I will' muttered the teenager when the door had finally closed. After fifteen minutes of laying in loneliness, he was too bored to stare at the ceiling anymore. Sure, he was still weak – but he was not going to run a mile now, was he? Quietly, he jumped out of the bed and lowered his blood vial. When it was low enough, he started doing pushups. He was not going to waste time at such place, especially with this mild weather that seemed to be indecisive of whether to be warm or not.

If the blonde hadn't intervened he'd be in a different place now.

'Twenty three… twenty four…' And maybe it would be all different. He wouldn't have to eat iron from the spoon… 'Thirty one… thirty two…' …and maybe the Third would help him somehow… 'Thirty seven… ugh…' He stopped. It seemed it was too much for him even now. Especially as he had to wait to regain breath to sit back on the bed again. Gods! He was going to waste time like stupid! And a moment later, he fell into a shallow sleep.

Minato didn't go to see the redhead. She was still irritated at him for that stupid comment and didn't care for having a reprisal of it, because she was sure the redhead would blame her for his current status. It seemed that when it came to Sunanins, you couldn't save their lives without them trying to kill themselves all over out of spite.

Instead she went to her department and aired and dusted the place –not that there was that much as far as furniture was concerned- took the things she needed out of scrolls to make the area more easy to live in, fed the cat from hell that seemed to think was entitled to wonder into her department as if it owned the place and she had never decided to discourage, then went to buy some groceries.

Her plans for the rest of the week consisted on pretty much the same schedule, including training and maybe go snoop at the headquarters and see if there was some sort of short mission they could assign her so she wouldn't waste her time completely, or maybe go train to the forest a little while, but she hadn't so much as cracked some eggs to make themselves something quick and easy like rice omelet when there were some pecks at the window.

The grey aggressive gray tabby immediately perked up from its spot in one of the kitchen tables and gave the messenger bird a hungry look, but the trained animal just glared back sanginarily. It was apparently enough to dissuade the cat, and so Minato brought the animal in and fed it a bit of meat she had around to add to the food while she read the message.

Even though I'm glad to know the both of you are alive and relatively well, I'm disappointed on you, Minato. I thought you had understood what I meant when I asked you to treat your teammates as part of your team instead of deciding things on your own and forcing those on them when you don't get what you want. I understand you didn't think there was any other option at the time, but you need to learn to be more flexible if you want to be a good captain for your team. I suggest for you to go and try to sort this situation out with Sabaku before this turns into something without a solution.

Please keep me informed on his state and yours. If you can, please go check on Kakashi and tell him I love him and that I hope he'll be behaving. I'll be coming back to Konoha as soon as possible to see him. Hatake S.

She swallowed, something sort of big and sour seeming to be stuck in her throat. If she didn't know better, she'd say it was the word 'disappointed'.

'That's not fair,' she muttered sullenly under her breath as she distractedly passed the letter to the white haired boy. There was nothing in the message that was exactly for her eyes only, and if she'd had a father like Sakumo, she would have liked to see that sort of things herself. 'Nothing of what happened was really my fault.'

Kakashi had looked at her for a moment, before reading a letter, and squealed when he had read to the part meant to him. It's not like he missed his dad very much, he was used to the fact he was gone more than present – as many of other daddies living there. At least he still had his, not like some guys here. This Umino, for example. He twirled on a wooden stool once and looked at the ceiling, pointing at his own chin. 'Dad wrote you force yourself on your teammates.' He said, then twirled on the chair again 'That sounds like if you had problems.'

Minato gave the hawk another bit of meat, then shooed it off, not in the mood or having anything pressing enough to warrant a reply. 'My team is the problem. They are idiots. Suicidal ones.'

Kakashi smiled at that, but a moment later his smile diminished a bit. 'Suicidals are weird. I don't get them.' He said, then stood up from the chair to catch the cat and cuddle it, even if the pet didn't seem to like it very much 'But if they're sad, then maybe you should cheer them up.'

The cat's eyes flattened against it head and started making a truly weird sort of low yowling noise on the back of its throat. The kind that indicated imminent scratching would commence in 5… 4… 3… 'Stop that.' The blonde said lowly, turning around to glare at the tabby. The cat glared back but stopped making that aggressive sound, even if it was still with its ears flat seemingly stuck to its skull and its tail swishing threateningly. 'They're not sad, they are just stupid. Stupid, hard headed idiots who can't follow simple orders without messing up.'

Kakashi had only patted the cat, like if it was a normal purring member of his species and not acting like something that could lash out at him in any moment. 'Then why don't you show them how to do it? When my dad showed me, I knew what to do.'

'You are pre-genin level, Kakashi-kun. They are supposed to be elite ninja, explanations is the last they need. Their problem is they just don't want to do what they are told, they are too busy breaking things and getting drunk and wasting good money.' She realized she'd stopped paying attention to the omelet a second or two before it started smoking, quickly pushing it out of the fire and wincing when the heat off the flame passed over her burnt hand. 'I just want to strangle them most of the time.'

'You can't do that, you'd go to jail.' Said the kid wisely and patted the cat once more before letting it go 'Dad always says that when you're a team you have to do everything together, so maybe drink with them. So they'd do missions with you later.'

The blonde stirred the omelet. 'Sensei took me drinking once while we were on Earth country.'

The kid blinked at that and closed the space, looking at the omelets with curiosity. It smelled good for his tastes. His dad always burned his. He learned to like them the most such way. 'How was it?'

Minato as silent for a moment, staring blankly ahead with the spoon in her hand close to her lips. After a moment, she turned to give the younger boy a look. 'We can never go back to that town.'

There was no way Kakashi could understand that, but he learned to not question people who were older than him when it came to such answers. So he had only smiled. He didn't know the blonde's sensei also – he saw him maybe once or twice. The man had nicely white hair. Nothing special much. 'There's a lot of towns around.'

The older girl just shrugged, giving the boy a distracted ruffle and shoving the off the counter when the daring thing tried to jump in to get a sniff of what was in the pan. Scraping the contents of the pan in two plates, she put one in front of the boy's seat and sat down in the opposite chair.

'Hurry up, you will be late for academy.'

Kakashi had shoved the thing in two bites, the last one making his cheeks look like one of a very hungry hamster.

'I won't.' he said around a mouthful, yet being quite understandable 'I have never been late and I will never be.' And he was already jumping off the floor, chewing, wearing shoes and bag pack and all at once.

'Bye!' he shouted, still chewing, and closed the door. Not a minute and he was gone.

The blonde was left looking after the energetic boy, her cheek held on one palm. She would have probably stayed in that position for a lot longer if it hadn't been because the cat jumped on the table. The grey tabby looked at her, took a moment to groom one paw and then calmly sauntered towards Kakashi's plate, stopping to sniff the leftover crumbs on it before delicately lapping at them.

She considered pushing it off the table the same way she had done in the counter, but really didn't see much of a reason to do it. She turned to her own breakfast, though she wasn't that hungry anymore after all of this.

No, she wasn't going to follow the advice. There was no way she would go to talk with the redhead. ***

'Hi.'

At least he looked to be bored out of his mind, if the fact he was trying to exercise when she was willing to bet her favorite pair of running footwear disapproving nurse had told him not to.

The redhead had only slightly turned his head toward her, catching her by the glimpse of an eye. He hadn't seen her earlier, but even if the headmaster of the hospital had jumped in from his cardboard, he wouldn't stop his exercising. He was in the middle of muscle stretching and that had to be done from the beginning to an end, or else it would pay in bad pains and hardened muscles later. He turned his head forward and bowed down in another stretch.

'What do you want.'

'Just came to see if you were still alive.' the blonde said calmly, slipping into the room, her hands on the pockets of yet another white track suit. 'Kasumi-san seems to think you could have done that rather easily.' Idiot, she wanted to add, but refrained from it.

The man had only shrugged at that. He was not in the mood for bearing with another of the moods of the blonde. The hospital's food was awful – he was forced to eat sweet rice with sweet milk and drink the sweetened tea. Now his stomach felt nauseous after such a big dose of mulled over food.

'If you have nothing important to tell me, then go away. I'm sick, I cannot stress out.'

There was no other furniture in the room, so she leaned on the side of the bed she was closest to, giving her back to the redhead. 'You wouldn't be sick if you hadn't tried to kill yourself.' the girl pointed out, not unkindly.

Daichi blinked and frowned. What the hell was she talking about?

'I didn't try to kill myself, I was defending myself. Wouldn't have to do that, if you wouldn't teleport us to the frog kingdom.' He said and stood up, stretching his back backwards, so he was now bending and facing her at the same time.

'You tried to kill yourself the first time by going to Suna so Kazekage-sama could rip you to bits for abandoning your duties without a word, running from your debts and acting like if nothing.' the little side table next to the bed was depressingly empty, she ran her hand over the cheap, standard semi-plastic wood. 'The second time you tried to do something you know perfectly well you can't do without a bloodline limit. I don't see how you would defend yourself in the state it left you. It's not like if you could have held that jutsu much longer, and as you pointed out, you carry in your bag useful stuff like poisons, not things for transfusions.'

'Maybe I would be shred to nothing, maybe I wouldn't, we will never know.' Said the redhead, then straightened up and stretched out his hands as far as he could. It was the last exercise in his book. 'I wouldn't have to try to meet my master if I was treated with enough respect and dignity.' He finally stopped and turned around to look at her. 'What should I have done then? Wait for them to give me a poisoning of my life? It would be just as good.'

That was a valid point, but she wasn't going to admit that right now.

'No one told you to try to break my spine when we were surrounded by only all my familiars but extended family. You should know how protective ninja animals can be about their contracted shinobi.' She said instead, turning her head lightly to give him a look over her shoulder. Still a lot paler than before, but at least he wasn't trying to blend over with the color white. 'And I doubt I've ever been anything but polite to you.'

The redhead had only stared blankly at her. Then he moved over the little table and took the cup with water that was standing there and started drinking.

'You're so polite it drives me crazy.' He muttered between one sip and another. He threw he a glance, then a second. Then he stood the cup down and started refilling it with the tea he was left in the glass pot. 'I don't know who taught you how to be a leader of a team, but you've obviously skipped the lesson on looking up the customs of your subordinates. You're attacking my only personal space with your feminine fatality and you dare to sit on my bed. You have never been polite.'

Minato wasn't very sure what happened then, much less what next, All she knew was that for a moment that funny noise you always seemed to latch on to you when everything was perfectly silent, that noise so much like when TV died at around four in the morning and all you were left with was that insufferable noise that seemed to be there just to penetrate your eardrums in the most annoying of ways.

Maybe Sabaku said something else then, she wasn't sure, nor was she sure how long did it exactly last, all she knew was that when the noise was gone, she suddenly had something pleasantly solid and heavy in her hand, so she took it out of her pocket and tossed it at the redhead as hard as she could at point blank.

It was a good thing she did it so hard, otherwise she wouldn't have lost the grip on the metallic thing, otherwise she might have tried to bludgeon the man to death with it. Slowly, limbs shaking lightly, she stood from the bed, staring at the redhead with wide eyes, her face seemingly unsure whether it should be aflame or deathly pale.

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She wasn't even sure he had so much as tried to say anything at all. Inside her head someone was screaming unpleasantly loud. Mostly it was nonsensical gibberish, the sort of things she didn't want to look too deep into because she might accidentally say them out loud, and that'd be it for her- things, words, white, angry noise ((DARE BASTARD LEFT LIED FAULT)) Her mouth slowly closed, her tongue licking her lips lightly for a moment as her shoulder slowly relaxed.

She blinked at him slowly, as if she'd never seen him before and he had appeared in the most absurd of circumstances, unexpectedly.

'I don't want-' ((to see you to talk to you know you exist)) Her voice came out full of cracks and funny, and she closed her mouth again, taking a step back. Again 'I don't…' ((ever again touch me talk to me look at me ever again I want you to disappear I don't want to have met you)) She seemed unable to finish the sentence, and then she took another step back, scratching at the bandages on her hand, then pushing them on her pockets as if she'd caught herself doing something shameful.

There was a faint rustle of cellophane from one, and she slowly pulled out a small bag of some sort of nuts in it. She gave them more or less the same treatment she gave the redhead, staring at them as if she had no notion how they had gotten there. After a moment she looked up, the same somewhat shocked expression still in place as she stared at the older nin. Then she threw the bag of nuts at him as well, though understandably enough, they weren't quite in the same rage of melee weaponry the can had been. They sort of bounced harmlessly from his chest and dropped to the floor.

Minato followed the trajectory with her eyes, as if her attention span had been drastically reduced to following anything that moved, then stayed there. A moment later the girl just turned around and headed for the windowsill, somehow managing to almost trip on it, and then she was gone.

The redhead had observed her in silence. The hit with a canned milk was executed perfectly well, so it tripped him from his feet. He landed forward, letting go of the cup and pushing the pot of the table – both had landed on the floor, making a mess. He landed right into the biggest pool of the tea. Thankfully, somehow he missed the biggest shards of the glass. His head hurt. Otherwise he would have told her something about what he thought of her behavior. But then he was hit with pack of nuts and she was gone. 'What's wrong with you…' he muttered, and winced, holding his bruised place on the head. A moment later the door had opened with a bang, showing both scared and angered nurse.

'What did I tell you about getting up?' she yelled 'I told you you're not strong enough to even stand up, not even exercise! What a mess!...' He was pulled off the floor and pushed right into the bathroom to clean himself and look through his cuts. At the questioning gaze that was made when the nurse found the can and the bag of nuts, he had only shrugged.

'My head hurts.' He murmured. Pretty soon he was having x-rays for concussions. Gods, that was a great way to not to be bored.

Not knowing what to do and still feeling horribly rattled by what had just happened; she'd gone to the academy to wait for Kakashi. It's not like if she wanted to tell him what had happened -mostly because she didn't want to so much as try- and if she thought about what the other had said she could easily feel that white, distorted anger creeping back into her, making her want to pound something. She waited and waited and waited, but it was only nine I the morning, and if she stayed still another moment she thought she would go mad. And she couldn't exactly wait four hours and some for academy to end…

For a moment she considered go ask for some mission or something to do with her time, but the idea of taking a D rank only made her feel worse, and the more she thought about it, the more tired she felt. She decided to turn back home and by the time she pushed the door open, she was too tired to care for the offended looks the cat invading her department threw at her. She left the door halfway open, took off her jacket , left it on one of the tables and sort of collapsed on her bed as noisily as possible.

Unlike other people who tried to maximize the available space they had, Minato had a large mattress covering most of the available surface of her tiny bedroom. A foldable futon would definitely have helped as far as the radio of the walk-able floor ratio went, but the blonde didn't really need much furniture in the room she used to sleep. She liked mattresses better than futons and loved that when it was hot she could just roll into the colder part of the bed. Besides, she'd also found it useful in that when she had visits (which so far only amounted to Sakumo's son) she didn't need to bother with preparing an extra bed, just scoot to one side and the matter was solved.

She stayed where she was for a moment or two, then yanked the upper quilt and haphazardly threw it on top of her, completely obscuring her vision. It made breathing a little difficult, but she ignored that and closed her eyes. She was already half asleep when she felt something big and warm settle somewhere in her lumbar region. She wasn't really surprised when shortly after she felt tiny pick pricks on the same area before the weight decided to get heavier and start purring.

'Why do you only stick around like that when I feel miserable?' The cat's only answer was to purr louder. A moment later, the weight doubled, along with the numbers of words uttered by the cat. 'Got'cha!' it squealed, then laughed out loud, squeezing both Minato and the cat 'You left the door opened, how un-ninja like!'

'I always leave the door open,' the girl replied flatly, feeling the weight pushing her into the mattress. Who needed to bother with bolts or so much as closing doors when you had five frogs smaller than keyrings and who could suffocate you horrible if you so much as set a foot uninvited? 'Kakashi, go back to the academy. You can't just sneak out all the time, even If you leave a clone.'

'But it's boring!' muttered the kid and flatted out on her, not minding the fact that the cat also stilled out of the pretantrum or predying. 'They teach us again how to throw kunais and I wanted to train with my katana! The one daddy left me! I want to do wooosh! And waaaash! And be like a thunder, and, and be quick and unstoppable and… like dad! And they only throw kunais.' The body stilled for a moment, laying still, then squeezed them both even tighter, making the cat make gurgling noises. 'Minato please, teach me how to use my katana?'

'Katanas break more easily than kunais.' The girl replied in the same laconic tone. 'Kunais are also easier to hide and on extremely close distance, a katana won't do you any good.' The cat had stopped growling and now was making the sort of noise you would expect a growling dog that swallowed a whistling kettle to do. 'If you stop sneaking out and finish the kunai lesson with the best grades of your class, I'll teach you to use katana.'

The legs of the youngster flailed, making them both jump at the mattress, along with the mattress. 'You promise?'

'Yes.'

'Yes! Mission accomplished!' squealed the kid, and started making even more movement on the bed only to finally uncover the blonde from her cover. Then he smiled at her with wide happy smile and kissed her wetly on the cheek 'I love you, sensei!'

And with the poof, the clone was gone.

Once released the cat made a swipe at the kid that wasn't there anymore, still almost yowling threateningly, its fur standing on end. It took a few moments more to glare threateningly around to the now brat-devoid room, before sniffing disdainfully and starting to groom itself. Minato watched it without much interest, then covered herself with the quilt completely. Now she felt that same weird tightness on her chest again.