XVIII. The Two Buckets
The rain that afternoon carried on into the evening, a loud shower pouring over the roofs, gurgling down gutters, and clearing the streets of pedestrians. Sakura and Kakashi had situated themselves in the small restaurant across the street from their inn—a modest establishment with worn tables and chairs and hand-written menus as the only embellishment on the dark-wood walls. The storm had pulled night over the city earlier than usual, but dinnertime was still a long way off on most people's schedules, and the restaurant was scarce of customers. The drumming rain boomed through the empty space, punctuated every so often by the banging lantern outside as the high winds knocked it against the building's side. Sakura had earlier overheard the innkeeper speaking to the cook: it was a strangely heavy rain for Amakusa.
"Your food's getting cold," Kakashi said without looking up. He had his book open before him on the table, cheek propped up on one arm as he read that novel of his for what Sakura estimated to be the thousandth time, the passing minutes measured by the slow rasp of a turning page.
Sakura eyed the meal Kakashi had ordered for her: a Mackerel dinner set with a small salad and a side of Miso soup that had already gone cold. She picked off pieces of the fish with her chopsticks, trying to see if dissecting it into smaller pieces would encourage her appetite. "Why did we leave Sasuke at the hospital?"
A page turned. "I thought Naruto could use the company."
"Couldn't they both just come back with us?"
"The hospital staff told me they wanted to keep Naruto in case there were any complications."
Sakura snorted and dug her chopsticks into the fish's eye. A pocket of oil burst and wept out of its socket. "What complications? Naruto has a demon fox in his stomach. They probably just want to keep him there to poke and prod him because of his 'miraculous recovery.'"
"That's why I left Sasuke there."
"Why didn't you leave me, too?"
Kakashi lowered his arm and sighed. Sakura could almost feel herself sag beneath its weight. "Did you want to spend the night at the hospital with them?"
Sakura bit her lip and continued picking at her meal. "No..."
The afternoon at the hospital—along with the terrible soreness pulsating through her limbs—had left her nerves frayed and open; she felt like a bundle of live wires stripped of their insulation, the copper cores exposed and electric. She knew she was being petulant and probably acting more like the twelve-year-old she looked to be than the eighteen-year-old she was.
"No, I'm fine. Sorry, Sensei." She stuck a piece of the fish in her mouth and dutifully began to chew.
Kakashi rubbed his bloodshot eye before he returned his attention to Icha Icha. "Ideally, I would have admitted you as well, but since this isn't Konoha, the medical bills won't be subsidized. Most of the money I brought for the mission is at the bottom of the ocean by now. I had a rainy day fund—pun intended—in a scroll, and it's more than enough to cover one student's hospital bill, but not two. I chose Naruto because of his condition and we still had to pay for room and board and food—" Kakashi turned another page—"You're right—he was probably fine to pull out of the hospital as soon as his condition stabilized, which was within a few days, but between not having a medical shinobi on the team and looking after you while you were unconscious, I couldn't risk the chance of any more 'complications' at that point."
The arrow of guilt already lodged in Sakura's chest twisted harder: she knew her teacher had been worn thin and haggard by the past few days; that they had lost most of their belongings in the ship wreck; that small hospitals at civilian towns like this were expensive and required a hefty down payment upfront; that all the money for the hospital, their inn, and their food wasn't coming from thin air. She knew why she was the only one eating dinner tonight.
"I know, Kakashi-sensei. Sorry." She took another bite of her fish and, before she could swallow, her chopsticks went out to pick another piece and shoved it into her mouth. Her hand roved to the side and found the bowl of Miso soup, bringing it to her mouth so she could wash everything down. As Kakashi had suspected, the food had gotten cold, but as soon as the food hit her stomach, the headache that had been throbbing against the inside of her skull all day contracted a little. As her thoughts cleared, so did the sharp edge to her hunger.
Kakashi supervised his student going at her dinner set in earnest. "Look on the bright side, since you're awake, we can leave as soon as you're ready to travel," he said.
"I'm ready to travel now," she said around cheeks crammed with masticated fish and side salad and possibly daikon—Sakura wasn't really keeping track.
"We'll leave first thing tomorrow morning, then." He tilted his neck and rolled his shoulders, the joints crackling with relief. "Hopefully, the rain will have let up."
With her mouth preoccupied by the rice bowl she had lifted to her face, the contents of which her chopsticks were working to dump down her hatch, Sakura could only bob her head up and down in agreement as she? turned the rest of herself over to her hunger.
Kakashi returned his attention to Icha Icha, partly because having raised eight dogs, Kakashi knew at this point any other attempts at communication would likely be futile, but mostly because he found reading more engaging than watching Sakura stuffing her brains out. He had gotten through less than five paragraphs when he heard her set her chopsticks down upon the table and heave a loud sigh of content.
"Wow, I guess I was hungrier than I thought," Sakura said, staring down in awe at the plates she had just laid waste to.
"Well, you haven't eaten anything since those pork buns."
"They were red beans."
"Hmm?"
"Nothing. I guess you're right. I really hadn't eaten all day." The fullness in Sakura's stomach eased other tensions within her as well, tensions she hadn't known had been strung tight across thoughts keeping her mind anchored to that terrible hospital room and Naruto's missing arm. As the load dragging her mood and mind lightened, her thoughts, now freer, began roaming through the expanse of last week's events, though it wasn't long before she stumbled across a large problem.
"Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke saw me sink the ship."
"Mmm."
"How're you going to explain that away?"
"We'll just tell him you're ex-ANBU."
"I'm being serious, Kakashi-sensei."
Kakashi flipped another page in his book. "Great—me too. You know, I feel like this isn't the first time we've had this exchange."
Her brows furrowed in doubt as she stabbed her fingers through all the terrible holes she saw in his plan. The biggest and most obvious: "He's not going to buy it."
"Why not?"
"Kakashi-sensei, I'm twelve. "
"Out of anyone, I think Sasuke would be the most receptive to the idea. I think his brother was eleven when he joined."
"But I'm not a genius clan-murdering psychopath!"
"Do you have a better plan?"
Sakura waited for her counter argument to come. "Well—no, but... I don't know. Ex-ANBU? Maybe I should just tell him I'm from the future?" She said out loud, letting the idea hang in the air between them. Kakashi didn't respond out of politeness and Sakura cringed. "You're right. ANBU is probably the best explanation we have—that I have."
"Who knows, he might not even ask you about it. His memories leading up to the curse seal seem to be a bit hazy."
"Yeah, maybe," Sakura said, picking at the fish bones. She thought back to the press of those fierce dark eyes—wild and confused and desperate for answers—and she doubted it.
Around the same time elsewhere in Amakusa, a barkeep was wiping down the countertop despite his expectations for a slow evening when the bell above the front door tinkled with its opening. A great sweep of cold wind barreled into the bar as a stubby man waddled in. The bell tinkled again as the customer shut out the storm, and the barkeep tried to council his expression as the man shook out his umbrella onto the floor—which the barkeep had just swept—before snapping it shut and sauntering up to the counter. The man piled onto the high stool, sitting upon it like a toad as his little legs dangled midair.
"One bottle of hot sake, please—that means warm, mind you. The last time I ordered from here, the drink practically scalded my tongue."
A muscle in the barkeep's cheek twitched as he fought down the overwhelming urge to roll his eyes. "Of course, sir."
"You can call me Sensei. I'm a doctor, you know."
Of course the barkeep knew. Everyone in Amakusa and their dead grandmothers knew Tendo-sensei, the doctor up at the hospital on the hill, a stumpy man who looked as if he had been compressed lengthwise between two great hands before a giant foot squashed his face ugly. And if you didn't know he was a doctor, he made sure to tell you in the same tone he ordered his drinks.
"Right," the barkeep said and hurried into the back to spare himself from breathing the same insufferable air as this man.
As Tendo sat and waited, he listened to the droll rain falling against the roof overhead, the incessant sound drumming through his head. He hated the rain. He hated the small hospital on the hill where he worked, and he hated his staff, unremarkable fellows who had all done their schooling at unremarkable institutions located in this unremarkable city.
Meanwhile, he had been groomed at one of the finest medical institutions in Kumo—the finest the land had to offer! He scowled and began tapping his fingers against the bar like a counter against the rain. There was no way an elite such as himself would waste away his talents in this dump. His thoughts went to their recent patient—the little blonde shinobi boy—and the irritation grating against his nerves slowed a little.
He smiled. He hated Amakusa, but it seemed he had finally found his ticket out.
.
.
.
As Kakashi had hoped, the following morning had eased last night's storm into an intermittent sprinkle. After thanking their hosts at their inn, Kakashi slipped into the streets, Sakura trailing after him—still tired and heavy-limbed—as he slipped into a general store located just up the block. There, he dumped what money he had remaining on a small tent, four small backpacks, blankets, and a handful of emergency nutrition bars for the two-and-a-half day trek back home to Konoha in case they didn't come across any fish or game, or if they were too tired to even try looking, which would be the most likely scenario.
Afterwards, the pair headed straight for the hospital without any frills of conversation while the soft, mist-like rain dusted their hair and shoulders, both shinobi more than ready to put as much space as possible between themselves and their botched mission. The hospital on the hill was as empty as the day before, though Sakura guessed hospital life was slow if you weren't located in a militarized city where most of the citizenry was made up of assassins for hire.
They found Naruto in bed in his room, but Sasuke was nowhere to be seen.
"Dunno. Jerkface left a little while ago," Naruto said when Kakashi asked after the other boy, and judging by the sour look on his face, Sakura guessed they had gotten into another tiff.
"I'll go look for him," she said before slipping off.
"He's probably taking a dump!" Naruto called after her.
Even as Sakura rolled her eyes, she began following signs directing her towards the restrooms. The hallways were as empty as they were sterile, and as she walked, she began to think maybe she shouldn't have been so quick to volunteer to look for Sasuke.
What would she say to him? Hi? Hey? Please don't remember that time when I punched a ship in half? What would he say to her? Would she be forced to use that atrocious explanation concocted by Kakashi saying she was ex-ANBU? Even if it was the best answer, Sakura still thought it was a pretty terrible one. Then again, what more could she have expected from a man whose excuse for showing up two hours late was always, "Sorry, I got lost on the path of life?"
With every step she took, Sakura aimed a mental kick at her own sense of duty. She felt all over the place since last night. She should have just kept her mouth shut and waited for Sasuke to show up. Though, she also knew she had also been trying to avoid that room, nervous that she'd have nothing to say to Naruto, nervous that the air between them would stagnate and grow uncomfortable. A mental kick wouldn't be punishment enough for her cowardice.
"Damnit, Sakura, you're such an idiot," she said to herself and began slapping herself over her head.
"Sakura?"
She looked up at Sasuke who had just rounded the corner ahead. His gaze flitted up to her treacherous hands, which were frozen mid-beatdown, and she snapped them against her sides. "Sasuke! Hi. I was looking for you," she said, clocking in his damp hair and the black plastic bag at his side. "Were you outside?"
He brushed past her, throwing a curt "yeah" over his shoulder. She let him ahead a few paces before following.
She eyed the plastic bag. "Apples again?"
"Are we leaving?"
"We are. Sensei and I bought supplies for the trip back—a tent and a bunch of ration bars, though I'm honestly hoping we find some fish or rabbit out in the woods. That stuff tastes like dried cheese and I can't..."
She stopped rambling when Sasuke paused and turned his head to angle his gaze at her. "Can you travel?"
"What do you mean?"
"You were out for a week, Sakura."
Her shoulders stiffened. "It was six days," she said, resisting the urge to tack on a 'I've suffered worse.'
His eyes dropped to her hand—the one he had bruised while crying out against the curse seal—and Sakura, noticing his gaze, pulled her traveler's cloak around herself to hide it from view. "I'm fine," she said before he could comment on it.
Sasuke's dark eyes lay onto her, and she could see the gears behind them turning, saw his lips shift as he contemplated pursuing the subject further, which would invariably lead them to the issue of the ship. She tensed over with anticipation, wondering how naturally she'd be able to lie.
Then Sasuke's chest fell and rose in a silent sigh. He blinked and the glint of curiosity in his eyes vanished. An expression caught somewhere between annoyance and resignation tugged down at his brows and the corners of his mouth. He turned away from her. "Sorry for asking."
Sakura bit her lower lip as she took a moment to watch his retreating back, stiff with unspoken irritation, and a strange slush of relief and guilt whorled through her. She knew he had meant well with his questions and it had been unfair of her to meet his concern with her bristled reactions. She hadn't realized her nerves were still frayed.
"Sasuke—Sasuke, I'm sorry, wait up." She hurried after him and pulled up at his side. He didn't stop, but he glanced her way. "Sorry," she said again. "I didn't mean to snap. I'm still worn down."
He looked away. "Yeah." Sakura caught the way his shoulders loosened and the tightness between his brows smoothed over. They continued side by side down the hallway, their steps in sync.
"What happened to your hand?" He asked.
"Oh...you mean you don't remember?"
They had come to a stop outside Naruto's hospital room. Sasuke, who had his hand wrapped around the knob, fixed her with a confused expression. "Remember? Remember what?"
"Oh, uhm..." And as Sakura began to wonder how much she should redact from the story, an unfamiliar voice exploded in anger from within the room. Their eyes met to silently corroborate they weren't hearing things before Sasuke threw the door open. Both strode in with quick, urgent steps, hands already on their weapon pouches. They came to a stop soon, though, at first reassured to see their teacher's lanky presence still in the room. If Kakashi was there, then things were likely under control.
However, they tilted into confusion when they spied a squatty man, whose bald head hovered somewhere below their teacher's chest. The man's back was to them, but his white coat flagged him as a doctor. The angry voice was his.
"—can't! It's been less than a week since this boy's had his arm severed! He's still our patient!" He said. His voice reminded Sakura of sewer sludge—thick and unpleasant. The doctor jabbed his sausage finger past Kakashi at Naruto, who sat at the edge of his bed fully dressed. His blue eyes shook with anxiousness as his shoulders hunched against the arguing adults.
Kakashi's one visible eye looked uncaring as ever, but Sakura didn't miss the way their normally slouchy teacher had snapped to his full height, his arms crossed over his chest. "Tendo-san—"
"Tendo-sensei!"
Kakashi's fingers bit into his arms. "Tendo-sensei. While I'm grateful for what you and the staff have done for Naruto, I'm afraid we'll be needing to return to our village."
"Do you even understand what you're doing? This boy is a medical miracle!" Tendo said, his motivations finally rising to the surface. "You can't just take him away like that! He belongs to all of science!"
Sakura didn't realize she had been surging forward until Sasuke threw out an arm to bar her. She turned the heat of her anger upon him, but he only he gripped the side of her arm to hold her in place, sharp eyes telling her to stand down.
"He's leaving today." Kakashi's tone remained droll and steady—he was reciting facts and statements, nothing more. "Let's go, Naruto."
Naruto slid off the bed to comply and scurried to join the safety of his two teammates, giving the two men wide berth on his path across the room. Tendo twisted in outrage to watch Naruto go, and Sakura caught a glimpse of the man's pudgy face inlaid with small greedy eyes and fat loose lips. All-in-all, a face she was sure no one would fault her for punching.
"Wait—" He reached out as if to stop the boy, and Sakura tightened her fists, ready to crack some face bones.
Kakashi caught Sasuke's eyes and nodded towards the door. "Go. I'll meet you three outside."
Sasuke grabbed his teammates by their wrists and pulled them along through the threshold. "C'mon."
"Tendo-san," Kakashi said.
The doctor whirled back around. "Tendo-sensei. You can't do this, Kakashi-san. You are breaking the law," Tendo said. To be honest, he wasn't sure what the exact legal ramifications were for pulling patients out against a doctor's orders, but he would not let that boy go without a fight, not when he was this close to springing himself free from this dead-end hospital and into fame and status.
"Tendo-san," Kakashi said, and the other man's doughy cheeks grew red with indignation. "Uzumaki Naruto is a high value asset of Konoha—"
"Of course he's high value! The boy's recovery is astounding! He's wasted in the clumsy hands of brainless thugs like you shinobi!"
"Tendo-san—"
"Sensei!"
"Have you heard of ANBU?"
Upon hearing the name of Konoha's Black Ops, the doctor's expression shifted from anger to one of deep consternation. Even the civilian class as far out in Amakusa had heard the name of Konoha's infamous special forces, though their stories were often used in same role as the boogieman's, their names most often invoked to scare naughty children to bed.
"It appears you have. Then I'm guessing I can spare you the gruesome details." Kakashi let his arms fall to his side, shoving them into his pockets. "Tendo-san, as you can imagine, Naruto's, ah, condition closely implicates Konoha's security. If you'd rather not risk the chance of those men in white masks to come knocking on your door, I'd advise you to not speak too loudly of the boy. I'm saying this for your own good, too; talk of astounding healing powers often attracts the attention of less savory characters."
The doctor's pasty complexion flushed dark maroon, his eyes widening to the size of grapes in their sockets as he swelled with the heat of his anger. But he remained silent, and because Kakashi was running low on patience, he decided Tendo's non-response would have to do and side-stepped the doctor to make his ambling exit; if Tendo said another word, Kakashi wasn't sure if he could stop himself from grabbing the man by his bullfrog face and throwing him through the window.
Kakashi found his students waiting for him outside, milling beneath the overhang at the entrance, an uncharacteristic silence hanging between them. Kakashi held out the three small daypacks.
"There's one for each of you. The trip to Konoha will take about two days through the woods. Each one of the packs has nutrition bars with enough calories for those two days. You're responsible for your own supply." He paused, giving space for any comments, questions, or emotional outbursts, namely from Naruto. Instead, his three students slung the small packs over their chests without a word.
"All right. Let's get going, then," Kakashi said, and as much as their chattering and bickering ground against his nerves at times, he found himself hoping this subdued atmosphere wouldn't be permanent.
.
.
.
The journey home cut mostly through the large swathe of trees spread between Konoha and Amakusa. Naraku Woods was an old forest veiled in gray fog and stepping into it felt akin to stepping into the maw of a great beast with green innards. Vivid green moss furred every square inch of available surface, from tree trunks to rocks to the ground beneath them—even the creeks and rivers rank thick with the stuff. Invisible birds with unfamiliar calls cried unseen from the canopy and the occasional rainfall would patter against the plush world around them.
The four members of Team 7 traveled in a loose line, Sasuke at the rear, then Sakura, then Naruto, and Kakashi at the helm marching them over moss-slick boulders sunk into cold rivers, and around the huge knotted roots of the ancient trees. Kakashi had said a two days' trek, and that seemed about right, given the same route had taken a little over forty-eight hours to complete from Konoha to Amakusa a few weeks back. However, a few weeks back, they weren't dealing with a recent amputee and overall fatigue; she noticed their pace was markedly slower than before.
Late into the afternoon, the sky beginning to dim towards evening, Team 7 was picking their way over boulders across another river when Naruto teetered on the rock ahead of Sakura.
"Wh-wh-whoa!"
Sakura lunged forward, planting her feet with chakra on the water's surface between the rocks before grabbing his wrist. "Naruto! Watch—"
A sense of vertigo overtook her and her chakra guttered like a candle in the high wind. An icy shock enveloped her before something clamped around her waist and dragged her out of the water, dumping her onto the rocks sopping wet and sputtering river-juice that tasted oddly green and plant-like.
"You all right?" Sasuke's face came into focus, his black eyes sweeping over her for signs of injury as he crouched beside her.
"Thanks. Yes." she said between coughs. "Just water down the wrong hatch. And I'm wet." She looked over his shoulder and caught Kakashi standing with a loud dripping bundle of orange under his arm.
"Augh! Damnit! This sucks!" Naruto cried as he hung like a wet beanbag in Kakashi's grip. "Sakura-chan! You all right? Sorry 'bout that!"
"She's fine," Sasuke said.
"I wasn't talking to you, jerkface. I was asking her."
"It's your fault for tripping in the first place, dumbass."
"Asshole! I'd like to see you try crossing a river with one arm!"
"I could do it with no arms."
"Yeah? C'mere and lemme make that happen!"
"Now, now," Kakashi said, though he was inwardly grateful for the burst of liveliness. Silence was a weird look on Team 7, and on Naruto especially. He set the blonde onto his feet. "Why don't we just set up camp on the other side of this river and call it a day?"
Sakura took Sasuke's offered hand as he pulled her up. "But, we still have a few more hours of daylight," she said.
"True, but I don't think we'll set a faster pace with the two of you soaked through. Besides, we've had a rough week. I wouldn't mind taking it slow on our return home." Kakashi smiled.
Normally, Sakura would have written off his statement as a throwaway comment; she knew he could go for days without sleep, but it had been days and even their teacher's superhuman-ness had its limits. He hadn't been setting a slow pace for his tired students—exhaustion was dragging on him as well.
So they found a small clearing a few yards from the bank and pitched their tent; managed a steaming fire in spite of the damp; and Naruto and Sakura hung up their blankets, cloaks, and jackets to dry on some cut branches they had planted into the ground near the flames. By the time they had settled in, dusk had fallen around them. Birdsong gave way to a chorus of crickets, backed up by the crackling fire and, further out, the nearby river rushing through the darkness.
Kakashi took up post above, settling in the juncture between a tree's bough and trunk with his book in hand. Below, his three students sat around the flames, unwrapping dinner: ration bars.
Naruto took one bite of his and spat. "Aw, gross!" He cried, airing his tongue out. "This stuff tastes like a block of sh—"
"Stop complaining," Sasuke said, chewing industriously through his, fighting down the grimace rising to his face.
"What! You know it's true! Just look at your face! You can't even swallow it!"
Sasuke forced the chunk down in defiance and wished he hadn't.
"Hah!" Naruto cried, pointing at his teammate's pained expression.
Sakura took a few nibbles of hers before closing the wrapper over the bar. Resisting the urge to throw it into the flames, she instead dropped it back into her pack. "Maybe there's some fish in the river," she said while getting to her feet. Or crayfish. Or river snails. Anything would be a step up from the current menu.
"I'll go with you," Sasuke said, rising to his feet.
"Oh, hey! Me too!" Naruto began to rise as well.
"That's okay, Naruto—just Sasuke and I should be enough," Sakura said. "You should rest. More."
Naruto paused, one knee on the ground, his remaining arm resting against his leg. "Huh?"
"Take it easy. We'll be back in a bit," Sakura said, already turning to leave. It had been a long day, and the fall into the river hadn't been the only time Naruto had tripped that day. His sense of balance was still recalibrating itself from the missing arm, and Sakura didn't want him to exert any more effort than he needed to.
"Wait, but I can still help—"
"Here, doofus," Sasuke said. He pulled something out of his pack and chucked it at Naruto's head. "We'll be back soon, so don't sit around and mope."
"Ow!" The mysterious object bounced off Naruto's cranium and landed in the dirt. "Shut up, asshole! What the hell are you—" Naruto's eyes grew wide when he realized what Sasuke's had thrown him. He grabbed the packaged Styrofoam cup out of the dirt, holding it with wonder as if it were a holy artifact. "Ramen! Where'd you get this?"
"At a convenience store. At the bottom of a hill," Sasuke said, the corners of his lips twitching with smugness.
"I'm not going to thank you, you know," Naruto said before struggling to tear off the plastic wrapping with the aid of his one arm and teeth.
Sasuke's smirk soured into a scowl. "I didn't expect you to, idiot."
Kakashi watched the entire exchange from above—watched Naruto stick his tongue out, and Sasuke turn around and leave in a huff after Sakura. After his other two teammates were out of sight, Kakashi watched as Naruto set the cup of ramen down beside him and flopped back onto the ground cross-legged. The blonde looked like a sail that had lost its wind, his shoulders and chest sagging. He didn't spare the cup noodle a second glance, his blue eyes fixated instead on the firelight.
Despite Sasuke's instructions to not mope, it seemed the boy was doing just that. Though, Naruto would've likely eaten worms out of pride and spite if Sasuke ever told him to do the opposite. Kakashi clapped his book shut. Duty called.
Emotional counselling had never been Kakashi's forte, but if he left Naruto like this, he was afraid the boy might fall into the earth beneath the weight of his sighs. He picked his way down the tree and over to the blonde's side. Bending down, Kakashi picked up the ramen cup abandoned to the side.
"You're not going to have this?"
"You can have it, Kakashi-sensei," Naruto said, speaking to the ground.
Kakashi examined the package in his hand. "Hmm...yes, well I'm not big fan of Roast Chicken flavor either."
Naruto didn't agree—he didn't even reply. Kakashi put people in two general buckets: the type that liked to talk about their problems and the type that silently nursed them in their hearts. Sasuke, for instance, was in the latter, and Sakura and Naruto in the former. Being in the same bucket as Sasuke, Kakashi himself never understood the relationship between talking about his hang-ups and feeling better, but he had to admit it made dealing with brooding students a little more straightforward. All he needed to do was to get Naruto talking and the rest of the problem would unwind itself.
"What's wrong?" Kakashi asked despite having a good idea of the issue.
"Nothing," Naruto said. "It's just...I don't know..." Kakashi waited in polite silence. "I don't know, Kakashi-sensei. I know Sakura-chan was just tryna be nice, but I wanted to help get dinner, too, you know? And then this whole day I was falling and tripping, and then I made Sakura-chan fall into the river to help me, and...and I don't know. I'm still going to be Hokage someday, but do you know any that became a Hokage with just one arm? Because I don't... I don't even know if I can do ninjutsu anymore..."
Kakashi lowered himself onto the ground beside him. "Hmm, sounds like you're frustrated."
"Yeah, that's it. I'm frustrated. This sucks."
"And maybe a little worried about having just one arm?"
"...Yeah. What do I do, Kakashi-sensei?"
"Well," Kakashi threw a stick into the flames. "If you're worried about not being able to do ninjutsu, I know a shinobi in Konoha who can't even henge properly, but he's a Jonin."
Naruto turned to look at him, wide-eyed. "What? No way. He can't even do a henge?"
"Not even a henge. He's a taijutsu specialist—a master. Kind of an idiot, though. You'd probably get on with him."
"Whoaaaa." Naruto's blue eyes began to flicker with their usual shine. Then he slumped. "But I don't know if I want to be a taijutsu specialist."
"I'm not saying you have to be a taijutsu specialist. Actually, I'd greatly prefer if my students never came into close contact with Guy, but what I'm trying to say is, Naruto, everyone has their own way of being a shinobi—their own nindo."
"My own nindo?"
"You can kind of think of it as kind of a promise to yourself as a shinobi."
Naruto ruminated on Kakashi's words in silence for a bit, the snaps and pops of the crackling fire echoing in the background. "Well, I promised myself that time after I stabbed myself in the hand, I'd never back down from anything ever again."
Kakashi smiled in encouragement. "Now there's a start. And if you're ever worried about not being able to do ninjutsu, do you remember Haku from the Land of Waves?"
"Yes...?"
"If I recall that fight correctly, he knew how to do hand seals with just one hand."
"Yeah, that was pretty cool—oh...oh! I can still learn how to do ninjutsu with just one hand, Kakashi-sensei! Can you teach me?"
"Unfortunately, I don't know how to do one-handed seals, but, if that boy from the Land of Waves is anything to go by, it's certainly possible."
"Wait, not even you know how to do one-handed seals? So, if I learn, does that mean I'll be even better than you, Kakashi-sensei?"
"Sure."
Actually, Kakashi wasn't entirely convinced that was how it worked, but at least it seemed to pump the boy back into shape. A smile bloomed across Naruto's face, the first genuine one Kakashi had seen on him all week. "All right! That does it! I'm going to learn how to do ninjutsu one-handed, I'll never back down from anything ever again! And if I'm better than you, Kakashi-sensei, it means I'll be even better than Sasuke! I'll be so great, they'll have to make me Hokage!"
Kakashi smiled. The road ahead for the blonde would be tough—tougher than it had already been, but for some reason, he couldn't help but believe the boy would succeed. His hand moved on its own, ruffling the boy's mess of blonde locks, the one that reminded him of his old teacher and that goofy grin that sent a pang through his right eye.
"I know you will, Naruto."
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Catching fish with nothing but kunai was hard enough. Doing it by moonlight was downright frustrating. Add on the fact that Sakura still felt sore and sluggish from Chakra exhaustion, and she was ready to dynamite the entire riverbed with an exploding tag and scavenge whatever had had been left in the destruction. Nothing like problem solving with sheer brute force.
Fortunately for the natural landscape, Sasuke's Sharingan proved to be useful when searching for dinner in the river's murk.
He stood on the river's surface as the moonlight ghosted down through the crack in the thick cover of trees overhead, the black water running beneath his bare feet feeling like a rush of cool silk. His eyes glowed like two rubies in the forest's dimness as he focused them upon the darkness between his feet. A shadow moved beneath the surface, near impossible to spot with the naked eye, but to Sharingan, the fish's outline was as clear as day. He threw the kunai, and the surface bubbled with the trout's final death throes. Sasuke plunged his hand in and grabbed it by its tail before the current could sweep his prize away.
His ancestors may have been dismayed by his use of the clan's greatest legacy as a tool for fishing, but the five fat silver-bodied trout laying on the mossy banks definitely looked more appetizing than those abominable ration bars Kakashi had supplied. Sakura sat beside the caught fish on the banks, each spanning the length of her fingertip to her elbow. Despite her splashing and flailing considerably more than him, her contribution to the pile had consisted of just one small minnow she had managed to slap out of the water. She watched Sasuke with gratitude as she rung the water out of the edges of her dress, though she felt a little guilty that her presence had been so redundant.
"That makes six—I think that's enough, Sasuke," She called out to him. "Let's get these on some branches and head back."
He blinked and the red eyes went out like a light as he made his way to Sakura's side, grabbing a stick along the way. By the time he had reached her, she had already strung three of the fish onto a branch so he went to work on the other half.
"Thanks for your hard work," she said. "Sorry this was all I got. Should we even take it back?" She held up her minnow in the air, pinching it between her fingers.
Sasuke shrugged, most of his focus on trying to pierce the dull branches through the trout's thick flesh. How had Sakura done it so quickly? "Sharingan gives me an advantage in the dark. Plus, your hand is..."
He trailed off and an uncomfortable silence ballooned between them. They had never resolved the matter regarding her bruised hand, and she knew laying just beyond that in wait was still the issue of her single-handedly sinking an entire ship. Her skin prickled against the quiet, the air charged with static like the calm before a storm Sakura knew would fall upon her any second.
"Sakura," Sasuke said.
"Yes?" She asked, trying to keep her voice steady. She was ex-ANBU. It was a lie—a fat one, but smoke and mirrors, subterfuge, and deceit—that was all part of the job description. Though, to be fair, people rarely requested her to be on their missions for her stealth and sneakiness. Usually it was because they wanted a durable medic who could bust her way through tough situations and tank enemies with heavy defensive capabilities. But what was a little fib to an elite Jonin like her? She inhaled deeply to calm her nerves.
"That fight on the ocean, against that man—Orochimaru. What happened?" He asked.
"You're going to have be a little more specific?" She winced against the off-key tone of her voice. She had been trying to sound casual, but she had hit a note too high.
He took in her frantic green eyes and the stiffness in her shoulders before exhaling and dropping his gaze. He rose to his feet and the tension billowing between them collapsed like a tent without its center. "I just don't remember much of what happened."
"What? Oh...uhm, sure?" She said, getting to her feet and almost stumbling in her haste to chase after him, a bit dazed and disoriented by the unexpected turn of the conversation. "Hang on, you don't remember anything? Well, I guess the better question is, what do you remember?"
"It's a blur. He bit me, that's all I really remember."
"Really?"
"Really," he said. He was lying, but when looked over and saw her shoulders fall with relief, he knew he had decided correctly.
Of course he remembered. How could he forget? Everything from that battle had been burned into his memory. She had moved with a speed and agility befitting of a seasoned Jonin, rushing dangerous enemies with all the hesitation of a charging bull, though not even a bull would've been able to match the strength with which she had sunk the merchant ship. Sasuke didn't need to be a once-in-a-generation genius to realize something was greatly amiss here. However, even in the dimness of the forests' old shadows, even without his Sharingan, Sasuke could tell she was afraid. Not once had she faltered against giant snakes and men with melting faces, but for some reason, she shrunk away from his questioning, bracing herself like a dog against a raised hand. It felt cruel.
"Fill me in while we head back," Sasuke said.
He wanted to get to the bottom of whatever was going on, and he would, eventually. But he didn't think he could do it right now at the cost of her extreme discomfort. Kakashi seemed to know the general gist of whatever was going on with her, but he hadn't mentioned it. Sasuke didn't particular like or dislike their teacher, but he had to admit the man had keen senses—if it was anything urgent or dangerous, Kakashi would have made it known to everyone... right?
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Tendo-sensei was having a terrible day. He thought his existence in Amakusa to be generally terrible by virtue of it being a backwater town that he knew he was too good for, but today was especially horrific. He had been so close to pulling himself out of the bottom of this godforsaken pit of mediocrity.
When he first witnessed the blonde boy's accelerated healing, the possibilities opened up before him like vast tracks of fertile, untouched land before an explorer. The medical papers he would publish! He'd probably solve cancer! He'd be invited to speak at all the national conferences. He'd ascend that podium with victory in his heart as he grinned down upon all his peers who had snubbed him.
But before he could even take a blood sample, that insolent, white-haired brute of a shinobi had razed his dreams to the ground. This was why he hated dealing with the uneducated class; they had no elegance of thought and everything was always settled with violence.
So, Tendo sought refuge from life's injustices in the same establishment mankind had sought during his most trying times since time immemorial: the bar. He told himself he would just have a small bottle of sake to dull the pain of crushed dreams. As these things went, three hours later, he was on his eighth bottle, his brain rendered into an alcohol-soaked mush—his tongue not in much better shape.
"...and then! And then! And then, listen, and then do you know what that white-haired bastard told me?" He said to his bartender, slurring all over the place. "He told me, that he'd send the ANBU after me! Me! And for what? Let me tell you! That boy's healing powers were astounding! Astounding—a medical miracle! People like you just don't see the potential! The potential-!" He slammed the bottom of his cup against the bar for emphasis. "Do you understand? The boy's arm was completely healed over in five days! There wasn't even a scab left! Understand? Of course you don't understand! No one in this goddamn town understands a single thing!" He said with a sweep of his arm, knocking over the contingent of sake bottles by his elbow like a crowd of bowling pins.
"Tendo-san—"
"Sensei! Goddamn you all! It's sensei! Know your place you uneducated trash!"
Heads around the crowded bar turned to watch the spectacle as the doctor everyone knew and no one liked clambered over the counter to rage at the Masaki-san, the bartender. A few shot Masaki a pitying look, most just grinned at the absolute embarrassment the doctor was making of himself. Almost everyone in the room hoped he would end up passed out in ditch that night.
However, two figures sitting in the corner took interest in the man for a very different set of reasons. Both their heads were tilted toward Tendo, but their expressions were impossible to read, their faces obscured by the vast brim of their bamboo hats. Most of the bar's other denizens barely paid them any mind; this was a port town after all, and those passing through were more numerous than the hoard of rats that overran the docks.
The handful who did notice them, however, were drawn to their beautiful coats: rich black fabric embroidered with clouds as red as the sky at daybreak.
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A/N:
Note 1_ Oh what? Was this chapter somehow more pleasant to read due to a significant reduction d in eye-cringing grammatical errors/missing words/weird run on sentences? That's all thanks to my beta, Amraklove. Holy crap. Super-duper Loud Shout Out of Love and Adoration to them. They took all my brain farts and turned them into coherent human speech. Also I sent them SEVENTEEN pages to look over and got them back within the day. I thought I wouldn't be publishing this for another WEEK. So props. And massive fangirling.
Note 2_Grad school is starting back up soon, which means I will have less time in my schedule to write, much less be a fully functioning human being. No promises about how quick I'll be able to churn these out, but I'll try and chip away at it when I have time (and brain cells).
Note 3_Thank you all so much for the wonderful reviews last chapter! Writing is a lonely business and it's always wonderful to hear human voices on the other end. Appreciate everyone's support thus far!