The ANBU Chronicles

File #1; Chapter 6

A key rattled in the lock and Sasori managed to grip a kunai from her holster. The door opened and Shiranui Genma, her partner, came in with several take-out boxes and a grocery bag. She relaxed her grip on the kunai and tried to sit up again. Genma set the boxes and the mini-mart bag on the table in the small inn room. They made eye contact and she nodded her chin at the table.

"I bought us dinner," Genma said," I hope you like seafood because that is pretty much all they have around here."

Her eyes lit up and she struggled to speak.

"W-wha'd you get?" she asked weakly.

"I wasn't sure what you might like so I got some spicy lobster, snow crab legs, a bit of shrimp tempura, noodles, a bit of stuffed crab, some sushi, and cold apple juice for a drink."

Sasori fought her body, willing it to sit up. Genma moved to the bed and helped her sit up. He propped her back against the headboard.

"Can you at least chew?" he asked.

Sasori nodded weakly. Genma patted her shoulder and went to the table. He started opening boxes and setting the food up on the table buffet style of sorts. He dug a camping plate out of his pack as well as a pair of chopsticks. Putting a little bit of everything on the plate, Genma dragged the only chair in the little room up to the bedside and put the plate on her lap. Carefully, he picked up a spicy tuna roll piece with the chopsticks and fed it to her. She struggled to chew it and eventually passed it down her throat. Genma leaned back and grabbed the bottle of cold apple juice off the table and unscrewed it. With perhaps a little too much care, he helped her drink a little bit of the apple juice until she put a hand up.

And so it went like that. Genma was surprised to find that the lithe Sasori had quite an appetite. After a few pieces of sushi, she was trying her damnedest to hold the chopsticks that she had clumsily plucked from his hands. He watched her in silence as she willed her fingers to pick the twin bamboo sticks up. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead as she attempted to pick up few noodles. He admired her strength and her resolve to try and feed herself, basic human behavior for an adult, however the more she tried, the more she failed. It started to annoy Genma. 'Why does she try so hard?' he thought.

Finally, he took the chopsticks from her and tried to feed her a piece of stuffed crab. She turned her head away.

"Look," Genma said," I know you want to feed yourself but right now, your body is weakened from that poison. Let me help you, Sasori-san. I promise I won't tell anyone that I fed you but please, eat. You need your strength."

Slowly, she turned her head and allowed him to feed her the crab. Her maroon eyes avoided his brown ones and a slight blush formed on her cheeks. He pretended not to notice.

After Genma had finished feeding both of them and lay her back down on the bed, he unpacked his blankets and a bedroll. He then set about the task of making himself a comfortable place to sleep. The floor was hard wood and he wanted to make his stay on it as comfy as possible. He made his little nest for the night beside the bed where Sasori slept peacefully. He dug a pair of pajamas out of his pack and changed in the bathroom, throwing his dirty clothes to the side to be washed in the morning.

Genma secured the room. He drew the drapes shut on the window, closed and locked said window, closed the bathroom door and locked that window as well and drew it's drapes shut. He propped the back of the chair under the doorknob after he had locked it. He made sure that the room was safe before curling up in his little nest.

Folding his arms under his head, Genma sighed contently. Sasori had her back to him but she rolled over and he could see her face. She really was quite beautiful when she slept, he noted. She seemed to lose some of her learned aggression and quiet, smoldering anger when she was asleep and looked for a short while like she was capable of some degree of affection. He reached up and pulled her sheet up towards her shoulders a bit. She snuggled herself deeper into the sheets and sighed contentedly, a small, faint smile gracing her face for a moment.

He flicked the needle with his tongue and let his eyes drift shut. Genma slept lighter than he usually did.

Sasori tried to sleep. She was tired from the poison but her mind simply wouldn't let her get some rest and whatever she did get was fitful and only tired her further. She wished for a change of clothes and a shower but she refused to let Genma help her there. Gods, she felt weak! Her own helplessness in the is situation was enough to bring tears to her eyes. Think! 'How do I get out of this?' she thought. The general antidote was working but she would need to identify what kind of poison she had been poisoned with in order to take the proper antidote. She suspected a plant based poison, given the speed of it's effect. Her mind worked furiously until she figured out what it was. Her eyes slammed open in realization of the answer: Shiyuri, the Death Lily poison, one of the fastest acting poisons out there.

She fought to sit up but failed again. Sasori looked at her poisons case that still sat on the bedstand. Her fingers reached for it and suddenly, for a split second, she was weightless. The Jounin landed with a whump onto something soft and squishy yet slightly muscled. That soft, squishy, muscled thing woke up abruptly as well. A second later, a kunai was pressed at her throat and her cheek stung a bit.

Genma stared hard into her eyes. His expression of annoyance at being awoken and the fact that she was so weak at the moment was a bit much for her. A tear slipped out of her right eye, its salt stinging the thin cut that Genma's needle had made in her cheek that was now starting to bleed a little bit.

Sasori choked back another tear. 'Oh Hokage,' Genma thought,' this is not happening.'

Genma softened his face and put his kunai away. He felt a bit bad for having reacted like that but that was his trained reaction for sudden weight on him while he was sleeping. A tense moment passed and Genma reached up and cupped her right cheek. He brushed his thumb across the tear, wiping it from existence.

Sasori was stunned for a moment. Such... kindness. She needed Arashi right now, her best friend, to comfort her but all she had at the moment was Genma, a ninja whom she had bypassed and ignored up until they had been placed on the same mission together a few days ago. Right now, he was all she could lean on... and she didn't want to lean.

The kunoichi closed her eyes and looked away, repeating what she had said on the bridge as if it were the only solid thing she knew.

"I-If you are f-forever leaning on people, you will f-forget how to stand on your own two f-feet," she whispered, forcing the words out weakly.

To her surprise, a gentle hand turned her face back to where it was. Genma gave her a bit of a concerned yet impasssive look that thankfully didn't make her feel inferior as she initially had.

"And if you are forever standing alone, you will forget how to get back up after you fall," he said quietly.

Sasori blinked and felt her fists close around his shirt in a light grip. Genma instinctively wrapped his arms around her shoulders and hugged her to his chest, stroking her hair lightly. 'Damn this is weird,' he thought. Genma wasn't quite sure how to handle the situation since he wasn't very experienced in dealing with women as evidenced by his lack of dates over the past few years. Still, he wasn't so stupid as to know that they needed comfort, even the ones that are tough as nails like Sasori. Normally, she leaned on Arashi for support, that he knew, but right now, he was all she had.

-End Chapter 6-