The Boy in the Team
Chapter Forty-Nine
It hurt to breathe. It hurt to open his eyes. The light hurt. Everything hurt. If there was one thing, one thought Shinku felt would aptly describe his situation, it would be a mix between 'never ending atrocious agony' and 'maddening moment of pure pain'.
The taste of iron in his mouth, the feeling of dried blood over his skin, it probably was because he hadn't been washed. The bed he was on didn't feel any different from a hospital one, but the air was different. His half-open eyes opened fully a moment later, as he took in the change of scenery.
He was in a room. He was in a bright orange room. He was in a bright orange room where the light of the sun gleamed off the walls and made it painfully blinding to even stare at anything that wasn't the bed's sheets.
The bed sheets were an atrocious green and orange, which didn't make it any better —the green actually appeared to be some sort of toad motif. There were a few pictures hanging from the wall, coupled with shelves that seemed overwhelmed with scrolls. The smell of ramen was so overpowering it probably was a reason he felt the need to retch.
His left arm was in a firm cast, which he couldn't apparently move.
The mystery of the ramen stench lasted until his eyes travelled beyond the bed sheets, and towards what had seemed like a gleaming white pile of plastic. It was a white tower made of empty ramen cups. It not only stood a good human-size tall, but it also had the uncanny ability of defying gravity.
The room was empty of any other human life however. He exhaled.
If he had to make an educated guess, this looked precisely like a room he imagined Naruko to have. However, he also doubted they'd let him sleep in her room in the Hokage's mansion, since he was pretty sure they had spare rooms for ambassadors and their families.
Hence, this was probably a guest room turned into playroom-working spot for Naruko. He'd bet his insanity on it.
"We'd probably return sane," he mumbled, "Too easy to guess this."
"Guess the hospital's still in dire straits," he gazed to his right hand. The beetle was still there, bright red and alive.
There was a simple moment of quiet. He wheezed as he felt his throat constrict. He was alive. Even the smell of ramen didn't feel so bad now that he thought about it. He was alive.
He was still breathing.
He could…
No. He winced and nearly screamed from the pain. He wasn't going anywhere any moment soon.
"I feel sick," he gazed at the ceiling. "If anyone can hear me, I'd like a washbasin."
There was no reply.
Slowly, his eyes closed once more. Eventually, someone was bound to come in and check on his condition.
He abruptly woke up thanks to a sharp, strong and prolonged scream. "YOU BRAT!"
"Baa-chan! Catch me if you can!"
The door opened with a bang, before Naruko dashed inside. A big-breasted pony-tailed woman entered next, seemingly with the intention of slamming home a few fists against the girl. She stopped however at the sight of Shinku —which was probably what Naruko had intended all along.
"No fighting with a patient nearby!" Naruko piped out, "Your rules Baa-chan!"
The woman's amber eyes gave a pissed look at his teammate. "You're lucky, brat, to be my goddaughter."
Naruko chuckled lecherously. "You have to tell me your secret Baa-chan! They're just too big to be natural!"
"What the hell do you know about it, uh!? You don't know how many years I spent as a board!" Tsunade replied, clenching her right fist and waving it in front of Naruko. "This," she gestured at her breasts, "Is the result of all those years of suffering!"
"Ah…" Shinku croaked out. "H…Hello?"
"Shin-chan!" Naruko nearly tackled him. It was a 'Nearly' because Tsunade gripped the girl by the scruff of the neck and held her down.
"Remember your strength brat!" Tsunade exclaimed. "Now, let's see what we've got here," she snorted as she neared Shinku's form. "They didn't even wash you," she mumbled. "They must have been pressed at the time."
"Yeah," Naruko grumbled. "They fixed him up and left him there, if I hadn't come along and brought him here he'd probably be sleeping in a corner of a tent or something, really. How do they expect people to heal without ramen and orange's positive influence?"
Tsunade's lips twitched upwards even as a light green chakra began to run through her hands, which she gently laid across Shinku's chest. "Well, and here I thought the Uchiha were good only to fan their farts up their noses," the slug sannin grumbled, "Your teammate did a patchwork job, but it did hold enough for the medic to do theirs…and whoever treated you is an arsehole," she added.
"Really, not even deadening the nerves," her hands moved towards his broken arm, "And they didn't heal the micro-fractures, course they probably didn't have the time but…"
"So, you can fix Shin-chan, Baa-chan?"
"Yes brat, I can fix him," Tsunade sighed. "He's not the worse I've seen and if he's awake now, it means he's got quite the resilience."
"Used…to it," Shinku mumbled.
"I don't doubt it," Tsunade rolled her eyes. "Well, let's get you all patched up."
It was a matter of minutes. Whoever said chakra wasn't wonderful needed to have his brain fixed. Within mere minutes, Shinku was —if not quite painlessly— standing back on his two feet.
"Now, don't you dare make any effort on your left arm for at least two days," Tsunade remarked. "I'm serious here. I'm good, but your body needs time to rest."
"All right! Then I'll show him around the house!" Naruko exclaimed, "And where the bath is," she added. "I wanted to wash you Shin-chan, but Uke-chan stopped me," she sniffled. "If you need a hand with your back," she gazed at him lecherously, "You just need to as—"
Tsunade's fist slammed into Naruko's head. The girl puffed out in a cloud of smoke. The sannin sighed just as the door barrelled open again and another Naruko ran in. "What was that for, Baa-chan!?"
"You need someone to kick out Jiraiya's influence from your body, brat!"
"Why, because going gambling and getting dead drunk is better?" Naruko shot back.
"Don't talk back to your elders, girl!"
"So you admit being an old hag, hag!"
Shinku watched as the two snapped one against the other. He sat back down on the side of the bed, waiting for the verbal sparring to end.
They were both panting hard by the time they realized they'd be going at it for a good half an hour.
"I'm done wasting time here, brat," Tsunade grumbled. "I've got patients to take care of."
"See ya at dinner, hag!" with a snort and a small smile, Tsunade of the sannin left the room.
Naruko smiled brightly at Shinku, and Shinku felt dread run down his spine. "So," Naruko, "Shin-chan? How about a bath?"
"A shower?" he hazarded.
"Oh," Naruko blinked. "Fine," she pouted. "Follow me!"
He shakily stood up, before starting to walk next to Naruko. The floor was made of luxurious wood and the walls themselves appeared of marble. The furniture looked rich, and everything seemed to ooze off some sort of neat and expensive air.
"This place's got something like five or six servants cleaning every minute," Naruko grumbled. "You can't make a smudge that it's already gone when you look at it again."
"Why am I…"
"They didn't have space at the 'hospital' tent," Naruko snorted, "And there was no way I'd let you stay alone in that shoddy apartment! Really, Shin-chan…" the girl looked at him softly, "I've got so many guest rooms just lying around! And I mean, I even furnished them myself!"
"Is that why…they're orange?"
"Orange is an awesome colour 'ttebayo," Naruko replied with a pout. "And it catches attention. So if the enemy sees something orange, they look there and they don't realize you're moving up to them from the back," she snickered. "Beneath the jumpsuit I've got a green shirt, who do you think would realize it in time?"
She crossed her arms behind her head, smugly looking upwards with her eyes half-closed as she walked forward. "Not that I need that, since I'm awesomely strong and fast anyway," she nodded to herself. "You can start venerating the ground I walk on any moment now, Shin-chan."
Shinku exhaled quietly. "Where's Sasuke?"
"He's pouting at the hospital," Naruko giggled. "We did Janken to decide who was going to take care of you, and of course I won. So, like the sorry butt he is, he's sulking while helping out."
She quickly flailed her hands in front of her, "Not that I'm not helping too uh! I've got Kage Bunshin going around the village and helping people!"
Shinku frowned, "Where's the real you then?"
"Training," Naruko shrugged, "Like always." She made a show of flexing her right arm's muscles. "These babies don't form in a fortnight!"
"I see."
Naruko hummed to herself as she showed him the bath —a luxurious marble bath with golden chequered faucets, "You sure you don't want me to wash your back?"
"S-Sure," Shinku replied. Naruko pouted, but didn't put up a fight as she closed the door behind her. He ended up hissing as he carefully washed his body under the hot water. On the positive side, the bruises wouldn't scar. On the negative, he now had a scar the size of a palm on his left arm. He supposed it could make for an interesting tale.
"Ah…" he exhaled in relief, letting the water wash over him. His hair was slick with blood, and by the time he washed it clean there was a puddle of crimson water running down the drain. He hadn't gazed at the bed he had slept in, but he had probably left a mess there too —he wondered if it would be clean by the time he went back.
When he stepped out of the shower, there were loose blue gym clothes waiting for him to don. He blinked, before blearily staring at the reflection of the mirror.
"She had to step inside to drop them," he mumbled.
"Nine to ten, she took pictures," his reflection replied.
"That's like betting on the sun rising in the morning."
With a sigh, Shinku dressed up and stepped outside. Naruko was chuckling, but she gave him a thumb-up. "Nice! Now that you're dressed up, let's go to where my real me is!"
"You took pictures, didn't you?" Shinku said calmly, eying Naruko.
"Maybe," Naruko whistled.
"There's something extremely wrong with that, I hope you understand it," Shinku said.
"I'm doing this for Fu-chan. She'll need something to pull her through the dreadful wait of not seeing her Shin-chan!"
Shinku sighed. "I'll never have a serious conversation with you, right?"
"Nah, that's not true," Naruko hummed. "We can totally make a serious conversation," she smiled brightly. "So, you're planning on entering Anbu?"
"I don't know," he acquiesced. "Kakashi didn't even tell me about it, but…"
"Kakashi-Nii's really sick right now," Naruko mumbled. "Dad said he might not make it," the girl smiled a bit more, "but knowing him, he'll be back from death's door in a moment."
Shinku wearily looked sideways. Did he really want to enter Anbu? Well, no, it was more of 'did he really want to go through Anbu training'?
He clenched his right fist. If he didn't, then would he ever become something else? He'd always be the one getting hit or wounded, while the others would simply pass him by. It was probably his pride speaking…but he wanted to become better.
"Probably I will," he mumbled in the end. "I mean, if that's what Kakashi wanted then he probably knew best…"
"Uhm…I see, I see," Naruko nodded. "Shin-chan, you're clearly a masochist, right?"
Shinku spluttered. "W-What? No!"
The sound of metal being hit reached his ears, and a few steps further brought him and Naruko's Kage Bunshin into a wide room filled with training equipment. Naruko —the real one— was sweating in a corner of the room, while lifting some heavy weights with both hands. The metallic sound came from her dropping the weights on the ground after every five movements of thrusting them upwards. Her clone popped up, and she turned around with a bright smile a moment later.
"Hey Shin-chan! Anyone ever told you you've got a nice ass?"
Shinku spluttered. "What are you, an old pervert?"
"I'm an awesome pervert!" Naruko laughed out heartily. Shinku neared, carefully avoiding to crash into any of the machines hanging around. "And this is my gym, where I train to become the sexiest kunoichi in the world 'ttebayo!"
Naruko lifted the weights again. "Baa-chan fixed you up pretty nice, right?"
He sat down on a nearby bench. "Yeah," he said, "How long was I out?"
"Not even one day," Naruko shrugged as she dropped the weights again. "You just skipped on breakfast and lunch."
Shinku settled quietly on watching Naruko train. "You know," Naruko said suddenly, "You can't use your left arm, but that doesn't mean you can't train the rest of your body."
"Uh?"
"There's that machine over there," she gestured towards a corner, "Good for running. Or, uhm…we could spar and I promise not to hit you on your left side?"
Shinku gave her a 'raised eyebrow' gaze.
"Well, I mean, you aren't getting bored right?"
"No," Shinku replied.
"Oh, all right then," Naruko was squirming as she returned to her training. Shinku frowned slightly. He didn't understand what the fuss was about —mostly, he didn't understand why the girl seemed uncomfortable.
"You know," Naruko said, "If you're getting bored you can totally tell me, I won't get mad."
"I'm catching a breath after nearly dying," Shinku replied, "I'm fine."
"Yeah, well…all right."
A few minutes of silence, and Naruko squirmed once more. "You're really sure you aren't…"
"What's the problem?"
"No, I mean, I wouldn't be able to stand still when someone else is training in front of me so…if you want to try anything just go ahead, all right?"
"Fine?"
Minutes passed by in silence once more, until Naruko broke the quiet with a groan.
"Promise not to laugh?"
Shinku inclined his head to the side. "Yes?"
"It's embarrassing, being watched while training."
"Oh," Shinku looked downwards. "I can leave if—"
"No, no! I didn't mean it like that Shin-chan," Naruko shook her head. "It's just…You're not bored, are you?"
"No," he deadpanned back.
"Good then, that's…good?"
"Why should I be bored?"
"It's just that, well, I would be."
"I'm not you," Shinku replied.
"Right, right, yeah…that's right," Naruko hummed before letting go of the weights and starting to use the bench to do push-ups. "You know, with the Kyuubi I need just a minute of rest and then I can go at it again. I can practically train the entire day."
"Oh," Shinku raised an eyebrow. "Don't you ever get bored?"
Naruko chuckled. "I've got the Kage Bunshin for it. I'm practically used to letting them have fun while I stick here doing training. Man, I can't even remember the last time I ate a cookie. That Kage Bunshin was a lucky bitch, that's what she was."
"You eat ramen," Shinku deadpanned. "Isn't ramen worse than cookies?"
"It's not for that. I can't go in a sugar rush Shin-chan," Naruko giggled. "Last time I ended up running around like a squirrel. It's sugar and coffee, my mortal enemies."
"Why all this training?" he asked.
"Because I can," Naruko mumbled. "I mean, even that creepy green spandex guy, he could probably train for three days straight…but then he'd have to go to the hospital to treat his muscles, and the effort might kill him or wound his heart or something like that…I don't have those problems. I can train nonstop, seven days a week, with only drinking and eating as a break. I get tired, and then the tired goes away. That's the Kyuubi's for you, I suppose. I started training at five, and here I am."
"You mean, with the Kage Bunshin?"
"At five, I could make ten of those," Naruko mumbled. "At seven, it was three hundred. I stopped counting, but by now I can easily make six thousands…and a normal Jounin can make something like a dozen before dying."
Shinku stared at her wide-eyed. "That's…a lot?"
"Yeah, I don't like to brag," Naruko chuckled, "But I'm pretty strong. I just lack skills. Those damn fuckers in the forest, I don't know what type of hold they used or where the hell they hit me, but I suppose it's all training…I don't go down like others with the Kyuubi chakra in me. I mean, I think you could pretty much stab my heart and I'd still plough through you."
"Doesn't it hurt?"
"It's a moment," Naruko shrugged as she twisted her body in mid-air, before doing the 'bridge' and keeping up on stretching. "And frankly, with the way the Kyuubi's chakra hurts when I use it, getting stabbed is really nothing."
Shinku didn't say another word. "Well," Naruko grumbled after a while, "I'm taking five," and with that, she plopped down on the bench next to him and dropped her head against his right shoulder. "Wake me up by then, Shin-chan."
"Ah…uh," Naruko began to snore. "All right?" he weakly mumbled.
He could feel Naruko's sweat stick through the clothes he wore, but his eyes remained down towards the pavement. The girl had trained every day, for as long as possible, since she was five.
When he was five, he barely remembered playing in his room with cubes or colouring pictures. Did he even have the right of getting stronger? He wasn't from a shinobi family. Reaching Chuunin was already a good achievement. He could remain a chuunin, enter the workforce, and live happily without setting foot out of Konoha again.
He didn't have to enter Anbu or aim for Jounin. He didn't have to try and become as strong as his teammates —which was already impossible, at least considering Naruko's strength.
"Ra…men…" Naruko mumbled in her sleep. "Stop running…" she giggled.
The girl who could easily create six thousand clones and crack apart the ground with a kick dreamed of pursuing ramen. Really, when he heard things like those…
Things weren't as simple as they looked in the end.
Minato Namikaze looked with his fingers crossed under his chin at the papers in front of him. Kakashi had pulled at every string he had before leaving for the mission. The Anbu leader was requesting new recruits to insert in the active ranks. Out of the list of shinobi proposed to begin Anbu training, Shinku Haruno's name stuck out like a glaring eyesore.
The fact Orochimaru had assumed control of the Sound village furthermore —it couldn't be a coincidence that he only used Sound Shinobi— gave him no choice but to declare the state of war against the land of Rice Fields.
If he did that, he couldn't let Naruko leave the village. Sasuke had asked to enter the medic-corps for training, and that by itself would require a few months of learning under a mentor without any distraction. Kakashi was out, the Kusanagi's poison was still making him suffer even though Tsunade did her best.
Rin's reappearance because of the Edo Tensei…he shuddered and closed his eyes. Orochimaru had to be stopped.
"I'm going to hell for this," he muttered as he gripped the thin brush to sign the papers. "I know I'm going to hell."
In tiny letters, he scribbled down two words at the bottom of the list of candidates for Anbu.
All approved.
He waited for the ink to dry, standing up and heading towards the window to gaze at the village behind the glass. "The village comes first."
He looked up at the sky. "Fight on, Haruno-kun."
He'd have to do the same. When Naruko —and subsequently Kushina— would know what he had done…he'd probably get the couch. Yes, he'd probably start checking it for traps that very night.
Minato Namikaze returned home after work, calmly heading towards the place he knew he would find his daughter before dinner. He had expected Kushina to greet him at the door, but when she hadn't, he had simply exhaled and headed further inside the mansion and towards the gym.
At least Naruko took her training seriously.
He found Kushina, peeking through a crack of the gym's door with a camera in her hands and a glint of mischief in her eyes. Next to her, Sasuke Uchiha was doing pretty much the same thing. Normally, that would have been enough to make him turn tails and run.
In this case, he simply crept forward until the two of them gave him a 'quiet' gesture and told him with signs to have a look…and so he did.
Shinku Haruno was squirming uncomfortably on the bench in the gym, while Naruko herself had fallen asleep on his lap and was currently drooling all over his knees. There was that sort of pleading look on Haruno's face that seemed to simply cry out for help, which was probably the reason the two near him were enjoying the scene.
It was like watching a kitten meowing wide-eyed for milk from a carton box on the side of the road. It was cute, endearing, and in a certain sense, it made him feel horrible for making a light chuckle at the scene.
He hoped Anbu wouldn't break the boy further. He really hoped that. No Anbu worth his salt ever squirmed like that.
Author's notes
Yes, this is the gut punch.
…
Joking.
