Much thanks to Tavina and Nobody_Of_Consequence for beta reading this chapter.

I'll only do this once: owo what's this?

Okay, that's out of my system, I promise.

I closed my eyes and pressed a hand to a temple as my head pulsed.

"Sasuke-kun, are you alright?" Sakura asked. She gave me the look she had given me the other day— yesterday? It had to be— when they had come to check up on me.

I resisted making a face. "I'm alright," I grumbled. I reached into my pocket— and was reminded that I had forgotten the painkillers in my pack. I gave up and made a face anyway. "I forgot my pills."

"Oh. Do you want me to go get them for you?"

Naruto looked cautiously between the two of us, which only made everyone else start to focus on our conversation, since he couldn't even manage to do that without drawing attention somehow.

"No," I answered, trying my best to not grit my teeth. I knew she was just trying to be nice but... "I can go get them myself."

"Oh, right." She flushed slightly, and it just made me feel worse than the threatening headache and itch of something did.

"Thanks though," I muttered. "I'll try to come back." I looked over everyone else. Ino was still Ino, and while Sakura had eased off, I had the suspicion Ino had been stalking me. Sakura was out. I didn't want to send her mixed messages. Naruto was antsy when it came to anything that involved taking money from others. I couldn't trust Shikamaru to not fall asleep. I focused on Shino. "If I don't come back, see if you can bring my food back to the room?"

He nodded, which was good enough for me.

I grabbed the map book I had bought on a whim and left, trying to not feel off. My head had felt mostly okay since Kakashi woke me up this morning, and it was annoying that it flared up now. I hadn't even done anything to cause it. I could still see Sakura's concerned face from the window when I walked away.

As I walked up the street to our inn, I tried to not feel too sorry for myself. I was better than that, but it was hard not to. Everything since our mission to Wave…

Kakashi still looked at me sometimes like he expected me to snap. He had trained me one on one for the tournament, and Naruto and Sakura gave me envious looks over that— Sakura when she thought I wouldn't notice— but even Naruto had learned new things from the people who had trained them for the tournament. He got trained by one of the Legendary Sannin. I just got to be bitten by one.

I had nothing to show for any of it except even more paperwork stuffed into my medical folder and a concussion they refused to touch because of everything else in that dumb file. It wasn't that serious, according to the medic-nin, even though I didn't remember a lot of the tournament or the attack because of it. I would just have to recover the natural way, without the help of chakra.

Maybe I could have tolerated being an invalid if I hadn't been packed off with the others to join Jiraiya of the Sannin. Then again, when I had tried to sneak off and train yesterday, I had thrown up immediately because I got dizzy from trying to run, so maybe not.

I saw the black and red again ahead of me, slowly heading for the izakaya Jiraiya had told us to stay away from, just ahead of a group of people. Red clouds on black fabric. I recognized it, I knew what that was, which meant—

My head only throbbed more in response, and—

I lost the thought.

The headache was from the concussion.

The thought escaping me wasn't.

Whatever I knew about that pattern was related to whatever happened the night most of the clan died. It was related to my brother, somehow. It had to be. It had that same feeling of getting too close and slipping out of my grasp, like every time I tried to think about that night.

I went up the inn stairs as fast as I could and went into our rented room, going straight for my bag. I pulled the bottle of painkillers out and dry-swallowed two, before shoving it into one of my pockets and yanking out my journal and pen, drawing the cloud design I remembered as best as I could on a fresh page.

I wondered if I could blame the concussion on how bad the cloud came out, but I was never that good at drawing. Trying to draw without putting the journal down on a surface meant that the cloud looked more like one of the poop doodles Naruto liked to put on any paper he got his hands on in the academy. Just lopsided. I labelled it as 'Red clouds?' before stuffing it back in with the map book and closing the bag.

Jiraiya didn't want us to go to the izakaya. He even told us he was meeting someone there. He specifically picked two people for if any of us had to go for him in the first place. Was it connected?

I tried to go over what I knew and could actually think about.

Naruto was loud and could be kinda dumb, though I wasn't sure I was in any position to be calling him dumb right now. Apparently plenty of people knew he had the Kyūbi sealed into him, but I wasn't sure if that would be enough of a reason for Jiraiya to not want him to go get him if something happened. Ino was loud and bossy, but not as much since she ended up in the hospital. She was more weird these days, but was apparently a target. Shikamaru looked like his dad. I was… Orochimaru wanted me.

All of this meant… I had no idea. Sakura was with Naruto and I when Orochimaru showed up and Shino was apparently also at risk. I didn't know.

I left the inn.

By now it was mostly dark, and all of the lights along the street were on.

I headed for the izakaya, only barely stopping myself from turning to enter it at the last moment.

I wasn't in the village, and I didn't have my hitai-ate. Post towns like this were run by Fire's government and were supposed to be more stringent, since safe travel depended on them; without an adult or proof that I was a ninja, I'd get shooed right back out, even if I wasn't going to try to order alcohol on the sly. Minors weren't supposed to go into bars. I wasn't even sure I wouldn't get thrown out even if I did have my hitai-ate.

I wasn't supposed to be exerting myself, but transformation jutsu weren't that hard to do. They didn't count.

I went down a narrow side road, and once I made sure I couldn't be seen, I ran through the seals, transforming myself so I looked like a civilian man around Kakashi's age. Old enough to go in without being asked questions.

I made it a handful of increasingly uncoordinated and unbalanced steps before I had to stop moving and retch into the grass.

A concussion combined with a different size and shape from being transformed was not a good idea then.

I ended it.

I was going to have to try and remember this so I could look up why trying that ended up being Puke Jutsu instead. I was tired of throwing up. I was also not ever going to call it that outloud, at least near Naruto.

I ended up settling for staking out the izakaya from the across the street, where I tried to not be too obvious. There were a bunch of food stalls set up with seats, and I chose the one with a few civilians my age hanging around it. I was fine with takoyaki, and I needed something, between throwing up and missing dinner.

I don't know exactly how long I lasted, but I wasn't able to wait anymore. Jiraiya didn't show any signs of coming out soon, and if I took any longer, the others were going to realize that I wasn't in the inn room.

I entered the izakaya.

To my irritation, no one said anything. I couldn't begin to guess if it was because they didn't care or because it was late enough for them to expect kids to go looking for their adult companions, or something. It wasn't like I had ever gone into any kind of bar before.

Inside, it was dimly lit and smoke-filled, and more crowded than I expected at tables in the front, a stretch of enclosed booths stretching back. There was also a set of stairs, with more booths overlooking the main room and bar area.

It was busy and I couldn't see Jiraiya in here. No one wearing black with red clouds, either. Maybe he was in one of the booths?

"Are you looking for someone?" a civilian woman asked. She had an apron on over her clothes.

"I'm looking for an old man with long white hair," I said.

"You're looking for your grandpa?"

I resist making a face. "Um, yeah." I wasn't entirely sure that Jiraiya was that old. I also didn't want to imagine being related to him. "He's kind of a pervert."

"Oh," she went, in a way that didn't say very much but still did. "He's in a booth upstairs with his friend, all the way at the end."

I felt very stupid going up the stairs.

I had waited for no reason.

There was also the fact that I was willingly heading towards an unknown situation, unarmed, and if I exerted myself too much I was probably going to throw up bits of takoyaki.

Up here, the booths were more like small rooms, all with doors. A few of them were empty, doors open, but most of them were closed, the people inside barely visible silhouettes, unless they were trying to get attention for new orders.

I approached the end of the upstairs booths.

This was dumb. This was very dumb.

But the red clouds on black meant something, and I didn't know why.

The woman had said the booth at the end.

From the outside, one of the shadowed figures was bulky. Almost doubled.

Maybe there was more than one person…? These booths were large enough for several people, after all.

Before I could push myself into action— whether to open the doors or to leave— the doors opened.

Jiraiya looked at me in surprise.

The other figure was dressed in a black robe, red clouds on top. His thin black hair was pulled back in thin rows that exposed his scalp, tied back so they fanned back up his head, and his lower face was covered by a black veil. Obviously ugly in a way that made our guesses about what was under Kakashi's mask seem tame in comparison.

His eyes focused on me, rising from his seat, an arm shooting out at me so quickly that I was barely able to process it— only for it to be blocked by Jiraiya, who had moved just as quickly.

I don't know what I expected.

Jiraiya's head twisted towards me; he was clearly unhappy. "Back off, brat." He turned his attention back towards Sasori, wagging a finger. "Are you trying to get the attention of the whole place or something?"

Sasori let out a sound of irritation. "Don't play with me, Jiraiya."

"Who's playing?" Jiraiya shrugged, flapping a hand. "You saw how busy it was outside and in here. All those civilian families traveling with kids while their schools are out. We're a few hours away from Konohagakure for any ninja worth their hitai-ate. Do you really want to start something in a civilian area like this?" Jiraiya's eyes narrowed. "You know as well as I do that won't further your plans. Leave the kid alone and go. You got more information out of this meeting than I did. Maybe you'll find our mutual 'friend' first." Jiraiya's grin, showing all his teeth, wasn't that friendly looking. It was like the first time I saw him.

The silence was more than uneasy.

Sasori gave in. "I suppose this is over for now."

As he trudged past, something flicked outwards towards me, and Jiraiya blocked it again, arm guard against the flat of a blade.

A metal tail had whipped out from under the robes faster than I could process.

"Do you really want a go?" There was a sharp, almost-frightening edge to Jiraiya's voice. Kakashi had said Orochimaru was supposed to be strong enough to destroy countries alone, and if Jiraiya was supposed to be on the same level…

A fight in a place like this wouldn't go well for anyone not Jiraiya.

The bladed tail retracted. "Next time I decide the location."

Jiraiya didn't let his guard down until Sasori went all the way down the stairs and disappeared out the door.

He lifted me up by the front of my shirt and dropped me inside of the booth he had just been in, on the side Sasori had been sitting in. "Sit." He closed the booth doors behind him, and slapped a sealing tag down the middle where they met. He had dropped the grinning, goofy, and dramatic behavior entirely, and was staring down at me seriously. "I expected something this stupidly impulsive from Naruto, but that concussion is probably scrambling your brain, isn't it?"

I stared down at the table instead. All the dishes, sake bottles, and both sake cups were on Jiraiya's side. There was even a half-empty beer glass. I didn't know what to say. "I had to know."

"Know what?"

"The red clouds…" I muttered. "I thought—" I cut myself off, and tried again. "It doesn't matter. I didn't know it'd be Sasori."

I heard Jiraiya shift in the seat across from me, and I felt a hand grip my chin. He forced my head up, looking me in the eye, "How do you know that name?"

I blinked. "He—" No. "You—"

"We never said his name, Sasuke. Where'd you pick it up?"

"I don't know."

"You're a fresh genin. Sasori was a big name back before you were born. He's an S-rank missing-nin. Most people don't even know he's still alive." His eyes narrowed. "How do you know?"

"I already told you, I don't know!" I pulled back from him, retreating to the corner. The tag had to be to keep the door closed. I was stuck in here with him unless I forced my way out somehow, the booth was made of wood—

Jiraiya yanked my hands apart before I made it halfway through the seals. "Don't do anything stupid, brat."

"I don't know, I didn't know who you were meeting up with until I saw him, I just knew his name…" My head pulsed, and I winced.

Jiraiya stared at me for a while, before eventually shaking his head. "Your whole team must be driving Kakashi out of his damn mind. If his hair wasn't gray already, he'd probably be heading that way because of you three. Sakura-chan's innocent little words might have us heading for war, Naruto's made friends with Sand's murderous jinchūriki, and then there's you…"

It didn't make me feel any better that whatever it was about me he wasn't saying, Jiraiya felt comfortable comparing it to those things, and I didn't know how to feel about the fact that he apparently knew more about what happened on the mission in Wave than anyone in the village did. Kakashi had to have told him. I eyed him cautiously, before testing a question that didn't have anything to do with what I really wanted to ask. "You really think we're going to go to war?"

He shrugged. "We might, we might not. The whole thing with Mist is a mess that'll probably screw up the political balance in the east whatever happens. Did you even eat?"

I didn't answer, but he shoved the bowl of edamame at me. It was already half picked over. I ignored it.

Jiraiya pressed the tips of his fingers together, flexing them as a bridge, looking at me over them. Whatever he was thinking, he didn't say, but eventually he yanked the tag off the doors, leaving bits of paper still on the wood. There were more mismatching bits under those. He must have used another before.

The waitress from before came up not long after. "Will there be anything else?"

There was no sign of the deadly serious man he had been when I came across them earlier with her appearance. Suddenly, his face was looking flushed, and he was visibly leering at her in a way that made me feel more uncomfortable than anything before had. "That's it! Just the bill! The kid came to bring me money!" He laughed, loudly.

Under the table, I curled my hands into balls, nails pressing into my palms, trying my best to not protest. I knew what he was doing. I had thrown off whatever he had been doing and nearly put not just myself, but everyone in danger, including civilians. Being forced to pay for it was probably the least of what I could expect as punishment.

The woman's eyelids lowered, unimpressed, and she left, presumably to get the receipt.

The moment she did, Jiraiya tilted his head a bit at me. "Not going to argue?"

I scowled. "I'm not dumb."

He laughed more, and my stomach grumbled. The takoyaki hadn't been enough, after throwing up.

I looked over the plates still present on the table and snatched the karaage next to his elbow, since that showed the fewest signs of being picked at.

Jiraiya stopped laughing. "Hey! That's mine."

I hunkered over the dish protectively. "No, it's mine now, you're making me pay for everything and I'm hungry." Before he could steal it back, I resorted to something I vaguely remembered from when I was younger from other clan members who also had siblings, and more recently from Naruto being just generally obnoxious; I picked up the plate and licked it.

He made a sound of disgust, which meant I won on this front, at least.

I still had to pay his bill anyway.

Shino was waiting outside by the red lantern.

"You didn't bother to go in?" Jiraiya asked.

"I decided to wait when I checked and discovered Sasuke was with you. Everyone else is at the inn."

Jiraiya gripped his temples with one hand, shaking his head for a moment. "You'd think with this many of you, you'd think a bit more. Not act like you have half a brain combined."

With that, he started moving, taking long strides that forced both me and Shino to walk quickly to keep up behind him. He was quiet the whole time, both on the street and inside the inn, all the way to the room door.

"Sasuke-kun! You're alright!" Sakura went, right before she stopped speaking, eyes widening at Jiraiya. Shikamaru, Ino, and Naruto eyed him, too.

He nudged both Shino and me into the room in front of him, and closed the door behind him. "The only one with an excuse right now for acting like an impulsive idiot is the Uchiha," he said, folding his arms in front of his chest. "The rest of you let a concussed comrade wander off on his own."

I tried to not glare at him over what I was mostly sure was supposed to be an insult.

"He said he was heading back to the inn!" Naruto protested.

"And you believed him and let him go alone."

"Were we supposed to not trust him?" Shikamaru raised an eyebrow.

"Not when he's still recovering!" Jiraiya rubbed at his face and sighed. "What the hell do they teach you in the academy these days?"

"Iruka-sensei taught us all basic emergency aid," Ino sounded defensive, and looked offended on Iruka-sensei's behalf.

Jiraiya shook his head. "Concussions aren't a joke. You won't see them that often in the field in serious conditions because enemy ninja usually don't go for headshots like that, but they can wind up more deadly or cause more problems than anything else, especially if they're not noticed. It might be harder to fight with an injured arm or leg, but you can still think." He tapped the side of his head with his knuckles. "Get your skull smashed hard enough to make your brain rattle around in there, and it's not the obvious stuff like being off balance that's going to be a problem. It's going to be when you wander right into an obvious trap or give a bad call that gets everyone killed." His eyes focused on me. "Kakashi told me about your little adventure during the attack. Why don't you tell your friends what you did?"

I felt my face and ears begin to heat up as everyone's attention moved to me. "I left the arena clinic to try and help," I said through gritted teeth. "Even though I wasn't in any condition to do anything." I felt better now, but mostly it meant I felt dumb and embarrassed over my actions, because I could tell I hadn't been in my right mind at all.

Ino nodded. "He wasn't really acting like himself."

It didn't make me feel any better to hear that from Ino, who up until the day before the tournament had still been acting weird, like she was seeing through everyone.

"He's lucky. We've figured out a lot about those kinds of injuries by now, so after a few weeks he'll be fine, unlike some of the older ninja who got their heads smashed up during the first war and beginning of the second one." He looked over all of us. "You probably recognize the type, even if you never put it together. Bitter, ugly tempers that seem like they boil over for no reason. Most of them don't work or take missions even though they don't seem to have anything wrong with them physically."

It was an uncomfortable moment because I did, and it looked like everyone else did, too; even Naruto was ducking his head to look at his feet instead.

Jiraiya heaved another sigh. "I think I've got the point across. Stick together, don't let Sasuke wander off to get himself killed or worse because he can't think things through. At least wait until you're all back in the village for that and it won't be my responsibility. I'm not gonna say anything about this to anyone in the village. This is the sort of mistake even experienced jōnin make, there's no point in letting a bunch of genin get penalized for it, especially when some of you are still up for promotion. Got it?"

Our responses were mostly half-hearted, if relieved. I don't think any of us were really that excited about the chance of making chūnin, after how these exams turned out and everything else.

After that, Sakura and Ino left to shower and change, leaving the rest of us alone for a bit longer. The girls had their act together already.

Naruto kept shooting looks at Jiraiya before we went, but I was too busy washing off the grim and letting my muscles properly relax from the water to want to try asking him. Between the tournament, concussion, not wanting to leave my apartment even though it didn't have running water and then a long day on the road, I didn't feel clean. At least at a travel stop like this I didn't stick out.

He still looked deep in thought when we had returned to the room; Jiraiya, with all that hair of his, was still showering.

Shikamaru had spent almost the minimum amount of time in the shower that he needed for washing up and then drying himself off, and gotten back before the rest of us. He hadn't bothered to stay up, and was flopped out on the futon he had pulled out earlier, already dozing off.

I was completely exhausted by the time Jiraiya came back, enough that I was having a hard time focusing on anything. There was no way I was writing in my journal tonight.

Sakura took one look at me and set up a futon for me. I managed to mumble thanks.

Before I passed out, Naruto finally asked whatever it was he had been thinking about.

"Hey, Ero-sennin, you sounded like you know a lot about medical stuff, earlier. Are you able to do that, too?"

Jiraiya laughed, but it didn't sound put-on, or even like he actually found Naruto's question that funny. It was mostly just tired. "Nah, I don't have the chakra control for medical ninjutsu or genjutsu. You just pick up some things if you're around the same people long enough. Everybody does."

"Medical ninjutsu…control, too?"

I drifted off.

A surprise second chapter for the month. It's been hot here (but thankfully not on fire), with temperatures exceeding 100F/38C the last several days, and even right now at midnight my time it's a very 'pleasant' 90F/32C. I hope everyone else is having much cooler time- and if not, I hope you're all drinking water and staying in the shade where you can!

Some of Jiraiya's talk in this chapter about Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs) is derived from things I learned about those issues from when my parents were in the navy as corpsmen, and then from my own stint in. They can have plenty of long-term impacts, especially without proper recovery, and knowledge about those have come a long way, even in the last couple of decades.