NARUTO © Kishimoto Masashi • Shueisha • Studio Pierrot • TV Tokyo. All rights reserved. Non-profit fun ahead!
--------------------------------------------------------------
Against the Tide
--------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Four
They met at the entrance of the police building the next morning, like they did the day before. Sasuke had been the first to arrive. He was leaning against the wall beside the door, looking at the ground, when he saw a pair of feet slowly shuffling towards him.
Glancing slightly upwards, he was not surprised to see the slightly pouty face of Naruto, about a foot away. The blond looked at the Uchiha straight in the eye and was, to his astonishment, the first to turn away with a slight frown. He looked like he had something to say, but was not able to find the right words.
Sighing softly, Sasuke pushed himself off the wall. Turning so that his back faced Naruto, he said quietly, "Come on... Kakashi's waiting to brief us on our first mission objective."
Those words alone appeared to clear the tension between the duo. Sasuke moved towards the building and went inside without a second word or a glance back, but Naruto was anything but offended.
The blond grinned brightly.
"Bring it on!" He declared loudly, following in Sasuke's lead.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Your first objective," the calm, composed voice of Iruka greeted the boys, as soon as they entered the meeting room they had been using the day before and sat down, "is to visit one of the victims of the Mizu-Youma. Her details are in this file..." The Chuunin caretaker paused to slide the black folder across the table, until Sasuke stopped it and picked it up. "Find out what you can from her and report back by this evening. If there are no questions, you may commence immediately."
Quickly, Naruto's hand shot out. Iruka tossed him a glance, and the boy jumped onto his feet. "Iruka-sensei, why are you giving us the briefing today again? Where's Kakashi-sensei?"
A look of pained resignation passed over Iruka's face.
Before he could reply, however, Sasuke cut in with a snort. "Naruto is right. With all due respect, sensei, a Chuunin who doesn't officially belong to the department shouldn't have access to the mission objectives. It's in the rules."
"I really wish I had the answer to your question, Naruto, Sasuke," Iruka smiled listlessly. "But since the order to assist in today's - and any other further mission briefings, came from Hokage-sama himself, I am obliged to believe that his word overrules all current standing legislations. I trust you have no opinions about that?" He glanced at the two boys before him. One blinked and the other looked away and stood up slowly.
"Let's go," Sasuke mumbled, kicking one of the legs of Naruto's chair lightly. Choosing not to turn back to witness Naruto's immediately irritated face, the Uchiha casually slid the door open and stepped out amidst loud shouting and cursing from the blond.
Not one to be defeated, Naruto stood as well and pursued his partner angrily, still in the midst of his rant. "...-and when I get my hands on you, you bastard, you'll regret ever kicking /my/ chair! The chair of the great Uzumaki Naruto! The next up-and-coming Hokage! The next-..."
The auto-door slid tightly shut after Naruto's hand left it. All that was left behind in their wake was an empty room and a rather confused mid-rank Ninja. Slowly, however, a smile crept into his expression. Iruka picked up the paperwork on the desk and decided that today would be a good day to try to finish cleaning up the Taiyoubu paperwork store.
Still with a happy, silly smile plastered on his face, he exited the room as well.
There was silence for a while.
Then something above the ceiling moved.
"Aah," Kakashi muttered from atop a thick rafter, now that the room was bare. "It looks like our teamwork is already starting to get better!"
--------------------------------------------------------------
"So? So?" Naruto was practically bouncing around the contemplative Sasuke, trying to read over the Uchiha's shoulders. "Where's this hospital? Who's this girl? What do we ask her? What do we do? Hey Sasuke! Say something! Hello??"
"Shut up, idiot. I'm trying to read," Sasuke growled under his breath, turning the page of the file. Sensing a rebuttal, he quickly added, "It's a sixteen year old girl we're visiting. All the victims of the Mizu-Youma we're hunting this time have not woken up from their coma yet - except her. We need to extract as much information from her as possible and see what we can do with it. That's about all..." He trailed off, flipping through the pages again and balking at the hideous lack of information. "Who the hell prepared this report? We don't even have a photo or the girl's name in here!"
"Don't worry!" Naruto took this as an opportunity to boast about his greatness. "With the next Hokage Uzumaki Naruto with you, no lack of information will be able to bog us down! Hah hah!" For good measure, the blond tossed a righteous punch into the air.
Sasuke walked on and ignored him.
"Hey, you could at least give me a reaction!" Naruto whined, chasing after the Uchiha, who had gone up ahead in his pause. In reply, Sasuke rolled his eyes and kept walking. "I'm just really excited, okay?" Naruto complained. "I haven't seen the sun for months, and I haven't gone on any missions for years! This time I'm gonna prove my worth and show them what I've got! They're not going to be rejecting my Tokubetsu Chuunin license for long!"
A thought struck him at this point, and he turned to Sasuke. "Hey... I heard from Shikamaru that you're only just a Genin as well. But your skills are..." He thought back to the mission reports he had been reading the night prior, evidence that Sasuke had, in fact, the power and ability of a Jounin. Not sure as to whether he should be saying that he had been reading up on Sasuke - who the hell wanted to give that bastard an ego boost anyway?! - Naruto simply continued with a pout, "... so why are you still Genin anyway? It's not like it's that hard for you. You get exams twice a year. I only get my evaluation every mission; and that comes only once in a /few/ years!" The blond snorted.
In front of him, Sasuke paused abruptly. His breath hitched and shoulders jerked. Curious, Naruto stopped as well. All around them, people continued walking towards their destinations, engrossed in their busy lives, drowning out whatever Sasuke could have murmured with their noise.
Naruto watched, as Sasuke's head lowered slightly. The Uchiha fidgeted, looking left and right. "I can't take the exams..." he finally said - so soft that Naruto almost didn't hear it. "I don't have a Genin team..." Then, in a louder voice, Sasuke announced, "We're here," before pointing to a building to the right.
Following Sasuke's point, Naruto found himself staring at a large, white block of pasty, cemented bricks. Surrounded by a circumference of short, wooden fence, there was a sign on the wall beside the wide opened gates that read, 'Konoha General Hospital'. Several uniformed men and women passed through the wide gates, into the compound where the building itself was situated. Naruto blinked, realising suddenly that the building was very tall - even taller than the police headquarters. He wondered briefly if the scenary from the rooftop was as captivating as it was on the police building's rooftop.
"Pick your jaw up and close your mouth with it," Sasuke, however, appeared to quickly misunderstand Naruto's pensiveness for a country boy's awe. "We're here to finish our mission, not to gape. You can gape all you want after we get the information we need."
"I wasn't gaping!" Naruto's reaction was quick and furious. Sasuke had already begun moving in the direction of the hospital, so he followed and continued protesting, "I /can/ do things right! And I'll prove it to you! You'll eat your words about me yet, Sasuke! You--"
"SSHHH!!" A flustered nurse in white came up to the duo, the two of them having stepped through the automatic sliding doors just a moment ago. The nurse put a finger to her lips. "Be quiet! This is a hospital, not a circus!" She fiercely whispered, shaking her head. When the boys nodded meekly, she quickly moved off in another direction, all the time muttering under her breath about young brats who didn't respect the sacredness of hospitals anymore.
Sasuke stared accusingly at Naruto, who stuck a tongue out at him.
"Whatever it is, we'll have to find that girl first..." Sasuke stared gloomily down the long, wide corridor. He was used to the strong medicine smell here, having been inside this particular building more times than he really wanted to know. He was still uncomfortable with the idea of coming here, but a mission was a mission. If it kept Kakashi happy enough to hold legal stake over the Taiyoubu until Sasuke took over, then he was willing to do it.
Quietly, Sasuke beckoned for Naruto to follow. Together, they strolled towards the receptionist. "Excuse me," Sasuke mumbled, and flashed his police badge. "I'm looking for the girl who just got admitted from a Youma attack... We have some questions for her, if she is well enough to receive visitors..."
"Just... just a moment," the girl hurriedly turned to her computer, typing with quick, but flustered strokes. Naruto peered over Sasuke's shoulders in curiosity yet again, noticing that the shy receptionist had the scariest pair of pupil-less white eyes he had ever seen. "She's... she's in the third room in Ward 7... on the 2nd storey..." The nurse stammered.
"Okay," Sasuke nodded curtly, turning quickly towards the stairs without another word. He made his way up and was soon out of sight.
The girl behind the counter blushed and stuttered again, a good thirty seconds too late, "You... You're welcomed..."
"Grr," Naruto, however, growled at Sasuke's retreating figure. The growl became a grin at the still stammering girl, as he apologised, "Sorry! He's an asshole with no manners." The girl blushed gently and nodded. "Don't worry 'bout him and just go on with your work. Bye" With a happy wave, Naruto ran off after Sasuke - much to the chagrin of some of the other nurses walking around near the reception area.
Quickly, the reception girl went back to fiddling with her work, before anybody could ask her questions she didn't have any answers for. Her chronic shyness made it hard enough for her to find a proper permanent mission in the hospital. If she continued to let everybody who asked her a question distract her from her work, she would be out of the hospital in no time.
"Hinata," a colleague called out from the other side of the reception table. "Give me the file for the patient in Ward 8, Room 8, please."
"... Okay!" Hinata quickly stamped out her blush, and retrieved the file, fully intent to concentrate on her work once more.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Room three of ward seven was not difficult to find. Sasuke was already standing in front of it with an impatient look on his face. The room was, after all, immediately visible upon walking up the stairwell. Unlike the first storey, the second storey was completely silent. The dull humming of the overhead message carrier was the only sound audible when Naruto finally scaled the staircase. Otherwise, only the chirping of the morning birds on the trees outside, together with the occasional rustling of leaves, surrounded them.
"Hurry up, you moron," Sasuke griped, upon seeing Naruto appear from the stairwell. "We don't have all day!"
"That doesn't give you an excuse to be rude to the girl who helped you!" The blond frowned and shot back. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked away.
"Who?" Sasuke, however, was slightly confused. Blinking at his counterpart, the light bulb lit up after a while. Sasuke scoffed and waved a hand. "The receptionist? Are you kidding? I already acknowledged her. It's her job to be providing me with the information. No need to go further than that."
"..." Naruto eyed his partner for a while. "You're rude in a very subtle, cutting way." He remarked plaintively. "No wonder you don't have a Genin team."
A shadow of dark anger immediately brushed by Sasuke's facade. His glare at Naruto intensified. When Naruto said no more, but simply stared back innocently, like he had done nothing wrong, however, Sasuke sighed and turned to face the room door. "I'm going in." He announced dully. A split second later, he put his hand on the handle and pushed the door open.
"Hey... hey! Wait for me!" Naruto quickly followed, not wanting to be left out alone. He barged into the room with a silent 'oops', before quietly closing the door behind him.
There was a girl seated on the bed, looking out of the opened window beside her. She had long, pink hair and looked visibly all right - not what Naruto had expected to see from someone who had just suffered a vicious attack from a Youma. Slowly, the girl turned to regard the police duo, her face like a blank sheet of paper. Her eyes fell onto Naruto first, before moving onto Sasuke. When that happened, her mouth became an 'o' shape and her eyes widened. A light, pink colour tinted her cheeks, and she quickly looked away in a fluster. She tried to say something, but only managed to stutter some incomprehensible sounds.
Naruto thought he had never seen anything cuter in his entire life.
This was it! Naruto now thought to himself with great excitement. This was the girl he was going to marry, settle down, and have ten kids with! They would eat together, play together, work together, laugh together, live together and--
"You..." Sasuke's calm, business-like voice sliced through Naruto's fantasy, making the blond growl at him in anger. Shooting his partner just one questioning glance, Sasuke continued, while holding the patient clipboard in his hand, "... must be Haruno Sakura. Is that correct?"
Sakura stammered something neither Naruto nor Sasuke could hear nor understand.
Annoyed, Sasuke was about to repeat his question when Naruto's dreamy voice stopped him. "Sakura..." Naruto repeated, head high in the clouds. "... Sakura... Sakura-chan... !! Sakura-chan is such a lovely name! Just like the cherry blossoms in spring! Sakura-chan!!" By this time, Naruto had bounced up to the bed, standing beside it and grinning maniacally at the bewildered Sakura. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto! I'm the strongest and I'm gonna be the next Hokage! And when I do, when I do... will you marry--"
"HELL NO!! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!!" Was the firm, loud, and aggressive answer, as Sakura socked Naruto in the jaw and sent him flying to the other side of the room wall with a loud crash.
"..." Sasuke sighed. He closed his eyes, rubbed his temples slowly, and shrank into the nearest available chair.
--------------------------------------------------------------
25/8/2004
Part 5 of 16
(email XD!) XD (at) tougenkyou (dot) net
--------------------------------------------------------------
Against the Tide
--------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter Four
They met at the entrance of the police building the next morning, like they did the day before. Sasuke had been the first to arrive. He was leaning against the wall beside the door, looking at the ground, when he saw a pair of feet slowly shuffling towards him.
Glancing slightly upwards, he was not surprised to see the slightly pouty face of Naruto, about a foot away. The blond looked at the Uchiha straight in the eye and was, to his astonishment, the first to turn away with a slight frown. He looked like he had something to say, but was not able to find the right words.
Sighing softly, Sasuke pushed himself off the wall. Turning so that his back faced Naruto, he said quietly, "Come on... Kakashi's waiting to brief us on our first mission objective."
Those words alone appeared to clear the tension between the duo. Sasuke moved towards the building and went inside without a second word or a glance back, but Naruto was anything but offended.
The blond grinned brightly.
"Bring it on!" He declared loudly, following in Sasuke's lead.
--------------------------------------------------------------
"Your first objective," the calm, composed voice of Iruka greeted the boys, as soon as they entered the meeting room they had been using the day before and sat down, "is to visit one of the victims of the Mizu-Youma. Her details are in this file..." The Chuunin caretaker paused to slide the black folder across the table, until Sasuke stopped it and picked it up. "Find out what you can from her and report back by this evening. If there are no questions, you may commence immediately."
Quickly, Naruto's hand shot out. Iruka tossed him a glance, and the boy jumped onto his feet. "Iruka-sensei, why are you giving us the briefing today again? Where's Kakashi-sensei?"
A look of pained resignation passed over Iruka's face.
Before he could reply, however, Sasuke cut in with a snort. "Naruto is right. With all due respect, sensei, a Chuunin who doesn't officially belong to the department shouldn't have access to the mission objectives. It's in the rules."
"I really wish I had the answer to your question, Naruto, Sasuke," Iruka smiled listlessly. "But since the order to assist in today's - and any other further mission briefings, came from Hokage-sama himself, I am obliged to believe that his word overrules all current standing legislations. I trust you have no opinions about that?" He glanced at the two boys before him. One blinked and the other looked away and stood up slowly.
"Let's go," Sasuke mumbled, kicking one of the legs of Naruto's chair lightly. Choosing not to turn back to witness Naruto's immediately irritated face, the Uchiha casually slid the door open and stepped out amidst loud shouting and cursing from the blond.
Not one to be defeated, Naruto stood as well and pursued his partner angrily, still in the midst of his rant. "...-and when I get my hands on you, you bastard, you'll regret ever kicking /my/ chair! The chair of the great Uzumaki Naruto! The next up-and-coming Hokage! The next-..."
The auto-door slid tightly shut after Naruto's hand left it. All that was left behind in their wake was an empty room and a rather confused mid-rank Ninja. Slowly, however, a smile crept into his expression. Iruka picked up the paperwork on the desk and decided that today would be a good day to try to finish cleaning up the Taiyoubu paperwork store.
Still with a happy, silly smile plastered on his face, he exited the room as well.
There was silence for a while.
Then something above the ceiling moved.
"Aah," Kakashi muttered from atop a thick rafter, now that the room was bare. "It looks like our teamwork is already starting to get better!"
--------------------------------------------------------------
"So? So?" Naruto was practically bouncing around the contemplative Sasuke, trying to read over the Uchiha's shoulders. "Where's this hospital? Who's this girl? What do we ask her? What do we do? Hey Sasuke! Say something! Hello??"
"Shut up, idiot. I'm trying to read," Sasuke growled under his breath, turning the page of the file. Sensing a rebuttal, he quickly added, "It's a sixteen year old girl we're visiting. All the victims of the Mizu-Youma we're hunting this time have not woken up from their coma yet - except her. We need to extract as much information from her as possible and see what we can do with it. That's about all..." He trailed off, flipping through the pages again and balking at the hideous lack of information. "Who the hell prepared this report? We don't even have a photo or the girl's name in here!"
"Don't worry!" Naruto took this as an opportunity to boast about his greatness. "With the next Hokage Uzumaki Naruto with you, no lack of information will be able to bog us down! Hah hah!" For good measure, the blond tossed a righteous punch into the air.
Sasuke walked on and ignored him.
"Hey, you could at least give me a reaction!" Naruto whined, chasing after the Uchiha, who had gone up ahead in his pause. In reply, Sasuke rolled his eyes and kept walking. "I'm just really excited, okay?" Naruto complained. "I haven't seen the sun for months, and I haven't gone on any missions for years! This time I'm gonna prove my worth and show them what I've got! They're not going to be rejecting my Tokubetsu Chuunin license for long!"
A thought struck him at this point, and he turned to Sasuke. "Hey... I heard from Shikamaru that you're only just a Genin as well. But your skills are..." He thought back to the mission reports he had been reading the night prior, evidence that Sasuke had, in fact, the power and ability of a Jounin. Not sure as to whether he should be saying that he had been reading up on Sasuke - who the hell wanted to give that bastard an ego boost anyway?! - Naruto simply continued with a pout, "... so why are you still Genin anyway? It's not like it's that hard for you. You get exams twice a year. I only get my evaluation every mission; and that comes only once in a /few/ years!" The blond snorted.
In front of him, Sasuke paused abruptly. His breath hitched and shoulders jerked. Curious, Naruto stopped as well. All around them, people continued walking towards their destinations, engrossed in their busy lives, drowning out whatever Sasuke could have murmured with their noise.
Naruto watched, as Sasuke's head lowered slightly. The Uchiha fidgeted, looking left and right. "I can't take the exams..." he finally said - so soft that Naruto almost didn't hear it. "I don't have a Genin team..." Then, in a louder voice, Sasuke announced, "We're here," before pointing to a building to the right.
Following Sasuke's point, Naruto found himself staring at a large, white block of pasty, cemented bricks. Surrounded by a circumference of short, wooden fence, there was a sign on the wall beside the wide opened gates that read, 'Konoha General Hospital'. Several uniformed men and women passed through the wide gates, into the compound where the building itself was situated. Naruto blinked, realising suddenly that the building was very tall - even taller than the police headquarters. He wondered briefly if the scenary from the rooftop was as captivating as it was on the police building's rooftop.
"Pick your jaw up and close your mouth with it," Sasuke, however, appeared to quickly misunderstand Naruto's pensiveness for a country boy's awe. "We're here to finish our mission, not to gape. You can gape all you want after we get the information we need."
"I wasn't gaping!" Naruto's reaction was quick and furious. Sasuke had already begun moving in the direction of the hospital, so he followed and continued protesting, "I /can/ do things right! And I'll prove it to you! You'll eat your words about me yet, Sasuke! You--"
"SSHHH!!" A flustered nurse in white came up to the duo, the two of them having stepped through the automatic sliding doors just a moment ago. The nurse put a finger to her lips. "Be quiet! This is a hospital, not a circus!" She fiercely whispered, shaking her head. When the boys nodded meekly, she quickly moved off in another direction, all the time muttering under her breath about young brats who didn't respect the sacredness of hospitals anymore.
Sasuke stared accusingly at Naruto, who stuck a tongue out at him.
"Whatever it is, we'll have to find that girl first..." Sasuke stared gloomily down the long, wide corridor. He was used to the strong medicine smell here, having been inside this particular building more times than he really wanted to know. He was still uncomfortable with the idea of coming here, but a mission was a mission. If it kept Kakashi happy enough to hold legal stake over the Taiyoubu until Sasuke took over, then he was willing to do it.
Quietly, Sasuke beckoned for Naruto to follow. Together, they strolled towards the receptionist. "Excuse me," Sasuke mumbled, and flashed his police badge. "I'm looking for the girl who just got admitted from a Youma attack... We have some questions for her, if she is well enough to receive visitors..."
"Just... just a moment," the girl hurriedly turned to her computer, typing with quick, but flustered strokes. Naruto peered over Sasuke's shoulders in curiosity yet again, noticing that the shy receptionist had the scariest pair of pupil-less white eyes he had ever seen. "She's... she's in the third room in Ward 7... on the 2nd storey..." The nurse stammered.
"Okay," Sasuke nodded curtly, turning quickly towards the stairs without another word. He made his way up and was soon out of sight.
The girl behind the counter blushed and stuttered again, a good thirty seconds too late, "You... You're welcomed..."
"Grr," Naruto, however, growled at Sasuke's retreating figure. The growl became a grin at the still stammering girl, as he apologised, "Sorry! He's an asshole with no manners." The girl blushed gently and nodded. "Don't worry 'bout him and just go on with your work. Bye" With a happy wave, Naruto ran off after Sasuke - much to the chagrin of some of the other nurses walking around near the reception area.
Quickly, the reception girl went back to fiddling with her work, before anybody could ask her questions she didn't have any answers for. Her chronic shyness made it hard enough for her to find a proper permanent mission in the hospital. If she continued to let everybody who asked her a question distract her from her work, she would be out of the hospital in no time.
"Hinata," a colleague called out from the other side of the reception table. "Give me the file for the patient in Ward 8, Room 8, please."
"... Okay!" Hinata quickly stamped out her blush, and retrieved the file, fully intent to concentrate on her work once more.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Room three of ward seven was not difficult to find. Sasuke was already standing in front of it with an impatient look on his face. The room was, after all, immediately visible upon walking up the stairwell. Unlike the first storey, the second storey was completely silent. The dull humming of the overhead message carrier was the only sound audible when Naruto finally scaled the staircase. Otherwise, only the chirping of the morning birds on the trees outside, together with the occasional rustling of leaves, surrounded them.
"Hurry up, you moron," Sasuke griped, upon seeing Naruto appear from the stairwell. "We don't have all day!"
"That doesn't give you an excuse to be rude to the girl who helped you!" The blond frowned and shot back. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked away.
"Who?" Sasuke, however, was slightly confused. Blinking at his counterpart, the light bulb lit up after a while. Sasuke scoffed and waved a hand. "The receptionist? Are you kidding? I already acknowledged her. It's her job to be providing me with the information. No need to go further than that."
"..." Naruto eyed his partner for a while. "You're rude in a very subtle, cutting way." He remarked plaintively. "No wonder you don't have a Genin team."
A shadow of dark anger immediately brushed by Sasuke's facade. His glare at Naruto intensified. When Naruto said no more, but simply stared back innocently, like he had done nothing wrong, however, Sasuke sighed and turned to face the room door. "I'm going in." He announced dully. A split second later, he put his hand on the handle and pushed the door open.
"Hey... hey! Wait for me!" Naruto quickly followed, not wanting to be left out alone. He barged into the room with a silent 'oops', before quietly closing the door behind him.
There was a girl seated on the bed, looking out of the opened window beside her. She had long, pink hair and looked visibly all right - not what Naruto had expected to see from someone who had just suffered a vicious attack from a Youma. Slowly, the girl turned to regard the police duo, her face like a blank sheet of paper. Her eyes fell onto Naruto first, before moving onto Sasuke. When that happened, her mouth became an 'o' shape and her eyes widened. A light, pink colour tinted her cheeks, and she quickly looked away in a fluster. She tried to say something, but only managed to stutter some incomprehensible sounds.
Naruto thought he had never seen anything cuter in his entire life.
This was it! Naruto now thought to himself with great excitement. This was the girl he was going to marry, settle down, and have ten kids with! They would eat together, play together, work together, laugh together, live together and--
"You..." Sasuke's calm, business-like voice sliced through Naruto's fantasy, making the blond growl at him in anger. Shooting his partner just one questioning glance, Sasuke continued, while holding the patient clipboard in his hand, "... must be Haruno Sakura. Is that correct?"
Sakura stammered something neither Naruto nor Sasuke could hear nor understand.
Annoyed, Sasuke was about to repeat his question when Naruto's dreamy voice stopped him. "Sakura..." Naruto repeated, head high in the clouds. "... Sakura... Sakura-chan... !! Sakura-chan is such a lovely name! Just like the cherry blossoms in spring! Sakura-chan!!" By this time, Naruto had bounced up to the bed, standing beside it and grinning maniacally at the bewildered Sakura. "My name is Uzumaki Naruto! I'm the strongest and I'm gonna be the next Hokage! And when I do, when I do... will you marry--"
"HELL NO!! GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!!" Was the firm, loud, and aggressive answer, as Sakura socked Naruto in the jaw and sent him flying to the other side of the room wall with a loud crash.
"..." Sasuke sighed. He closed his eyes, rubbed his temples slowly, and shrank into the nearest available chair.
--------------------------------------------------------------
25/8/2004
Part 5 of 16
(email XD!) XD (at) tougenkyou (dot) net