Chapter 31: Stationary

"You retards!" Kouji grabbed Naruto by the collar and twacked him one to the head. "Why didn't you give me this letter sooner?" and he weakly began to kick Naruto's shins.

"Ow! Why the hell are you beating on me?" Naruto cried, resisting the urge to strike back. "I didn't do anything!"

The courtyard of the Raikage's abode was alive with Kouji's antics. A few days after the battle, the Raikage's son had invited them over to "make amends", although it was hard to tell considering the abuse he was giving poor Naruto. Kouji hobbled all around the courtyard on his crutches after the fleeing blonde, Sakura, Sasuke, Madoka and Mitsurugi watching benignly.

"That's it!" Naruto hollered, wheeling around to face Kouji and reaching to his back for his sword. Before he could withdraw it, a cookie smacked him in the head.

"Ow!"

"Don't even think about it, Naruto!" Sakura lectured from her seat at the small, round porch table, where she was bandaging Sasuke's wrist.

"I forbid you from attacking injured people!" She snapped as Naruto rubbed his bruising forehead.

"But, Sakura-chan…" He whined, easily dodging as Kouji lashed out with his crutch.

"No buts!" She pouted. "If you attack him, he'll probably die."

"I don't see why that would be so bad…" Naruto muttered under his breath.

"Naruto!"

"Fine, fine." Naruto sulked and danced around Kouji's crutches.

Sasuke passively stuck a cookie in his mouth. Such foolishness… But he was glad Naruto was getting a taste of his own medicine for a change. Though he wished they didn't have to be so loud about it.

"Kouji-sama," Madoka muttered sternly, sitting on her ankles on the shaded porch, elegantly sipping her tea. "Please stop trying to kill yourself."

"Indeed." Mitsurugi nodded, sitting beside Madoka, mocking her posture and her tea-sipping technique. "You shouldn't be so immature, Kouji-chiin."

"Oh like you're one to talk." Madoka hissed, a vein throbbing in her forehead. "You nearly got into a fight with that guy too!"

"Well," Mitsurugi rubbed his chin in a faux-scholarly manner, "he is indeed very erksome."

"Hells yeah!" Kouji hobbled over and slapped Mitsurugi a hive-five above Madoka's head. The girl looked to be the most erked of the three.

"What was that!" Naruto hollered and began to chase them around the yard, Kouji poised on Mitsurugi's shoulders, waving a crutch in front of him, both of them laughing like maniacs.

Delivering the Letter had been surprisingly uneventful. Kouji had even invited them to read it themselves:

"My Dearest Kouji,

You stupid!
Of course, I'm fine!
Use some common sense.
Well, I just wanted to let you know, so don't worry anymore, k?
Everyone here on the island is good too.
Right now, it's getting really hot around here.
Even in the Hidden Cloud, I bet it's really sunny.
Rain will come soon, you think?
I miss you.
Great weather isn't the same without you around.
Hurry up and take a vacation or something.
Then we can walk on the beach together like you promised.

Furthermore, it may not be necessary.
Right now, I'm planning on coming up and visiting you.
On June 18th, I'll be there, and I'll stay for the whole festival.
Madoka-chan and Mitsurugi-kun will be there too, right?
Summer Solstice Festival isn't the same without them.
Aoi-kun, Kimaru-kun and Akane-chan should stay for it too.
Nether less, I'll be there to show them around and stuff.
Don't pick on them!
They're the good people who saved me from Usomaru.
Oh well, I'll talk to you more when I get up there.
Don't forget to be nice to Aoi-kun, Kimaru-kun and Akane-chan!
Usomaru is in prison now, so stop worrying.
Say Hi to Madoka-chan and Mitsurugi-kun for me.
To you, whom I love, I shall see you soon.

Love, Akari."

"That's it!" Naruto had exclaimed. "That's not cool!"

"Idiot," Sasuke muttered, "You can't expect everything to be S-Ranked ANBU-worthy."

Naruto glared at him.

"Bastard! It could at least have been more interesting!"

Kouji, who up to that point had been staring inanely into a koi pond, deep in thought, suddenly jumped up.

"What you mean 'more interesting'! She's coming to visit!" and then he began to take his frustrations out on Naruto.

"Mitsurugi," Kouji muttered. After running around for half an hour, the large boy had finally collapsed into a heap on the grass and immediately became subject to many merciless kicks from Naruto. "I have a favor to ask."

"Shoot." Mitsurugi wheezed under Naruto's attacks.

"Would you mind heading down to Sorano?"

"You –ow- want me to –ow- go today? What for –ow-? We –ow- still have a couple more days before –ow- Akari-chan –ow- arrives."

"Well, I do, of course want you to pick her up. But would you mind conducting a little investigation for me?"

"-Ow! Goddam it you little punk!- What kind of investigation?"

"I want you to look into the actions of Ku. I have reason to believe he's acting outside the interest of the group."

Mitsurugi looked up from the headlock he had wrestled Naruto into.

"Ku?"

"Yeah, do you mind?" Kouji propped himself up on his elbows. Mitsurugi dropped Naruto and gave Kouji an obviously fake salute.

"Of course, 'Kouji-sama'!" He called sternly, then shot a playful look at Madoka. The vein in her forehead protruded more, but she merely sipped her tea benignly.

Mitsurugi pick up his sword and passed by her as he headed back into the house.

"See you guys later," he announced as he pulled the paper-screen door open.

"Thanks, Mitsurugi." Kouji called at his friend's back. Madoka continued to sip her tea.

"No problem." And with that, Mitsurugi disappeared into the house. They vaguely heard the front door open and close as well before continuing their conversation.

"That was awfully short notice," Sakura pointed out in awe.

Kouji hauled himself up to a sitting position.

"Yeah, that's the kind of guy Mitsurugi is, I guess. Never wastes a moment." Kouji stretched his arms out. "And we shouldn't either. We have lots to do before Akari-chan-"

There was the loud, disrupting noise of a tea cup being slammed onto hardwood flooring. All eyes turned to Madoka, who immediately stood up.

"Excuse me, Kouji-sama." She proclaimed, "But I believe I have the evening off."

"Er…" Kouji scratched his head; he looked almost bewildered. "Of course, Madoka."

Without another word, she turned tail and exited the courtyard. Kouji continued to rub his head curiously.

"Ha!" Naruto jumped up from where Mitsurugi had dumped him. "Now you're out-numbered!"

"Idiot." Sasuke scoffed, wiggling a cookie between his lips passively.

"Stop being such an ass, Naruto!" Sakura berated.

"'Out-numbered'? We'll see about that." Kouji propped himself up on a crutch and smirked snidely. "C'mon, I have work to do; you guys wanna see the secret base?"

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura exchanged questionable stares and followed Kouji as he hobbled off in the opposite direction from Madoka.

Even with his crutches, Kouji wasn't so easy to keep up with. They had to power walk to keep up with him as he lead them through the alley ways of the Hidden Cloud Village . At all times, Naruto Sasuke and Sakura felt unseen eyes upon them as they slid through the maze of back roads and slipped through fences, They finally came to a small circular clearing, where there was a large pot hole. On either side of the opening, stood two guards, each around 14-15, wearing traditional Raibara black.

"Wait," Sakura stopped as Kouji began to lower himself into the hole.

"What?" Kouji looked around slightly, as if expecting to see something.

"Your base is in a sewer?" She exclaimed in obvious disgust.

"Yeah." Kouji responded, like anything other than a sewer-base would be crazy, stupid and uncool. With that he dropped down into the darkness below.

While the guards peered down, asking whether Kouji-sama was okay (with his injuries and all) and as Sasuke made ready to descend, Naruto turned to Sakura.

"What's wrong, Sakura-chan?" He asked as Sasuke jumped down behind him. "Scared? Don't worry! I'll protect you from crocodiles and things."

"Idiot!" Sakura snapped. "Just get down there!" and with that, she practically threw him into the hole. Sasuke side-stepped as Naruto planted his face into the concrete below.

Sakura sighed. Boys! she exclaimed, they have no idea what hygiene is! Suddenly she felt very sorry for Madoka.

She dropped into the darkness, expecting the sight to make her puke and the smell to knock her unconscious, but, to her astonishment, it wasn't even dark.

Lanterns lined the walls of a surprisingly sanitary tunnel. Sure, it wasn't clean enough to eat off and it didn't smell like a bucket of roses, but there were no smudgy globs encrusting the walls and no port-o-potty sewage slime running through the passage. In fact there was no liquid of any kind flowing through the duct, only a paved surface.

"Wow…" Sakura sighed in amazement.

"What? Not what you expected?" Kouji grinned as he led them down to the right.

"Well, yeah." Sakura muttered, still looking around for filth. "I thought it would be… you know... a little more like a sewer."

Naruto grumbled something about crocodiles and then glared at Sasuke for no apparent reason. Sasuke, walking in his typical I'm-too-cool silence, glared back out of the corner of his eye.

"What do you take us for?" Kouji replied, pretending to be offended. "Besides, Madoka and the other women in the group would kill me if I made the base nasty."

I can imagine…, Sakura muttered to herself.

They followed the tunnel for several more feet, occasionally bumping into a random subordinate, who would salute and Kouji would order to "call the others."

"This place is the sewer for abandoned apartment complexes." Kouji continued to explain. "So they're no longer in use. We use the other sewer lines for quick passage to different parts of the village, and, trust me, those ones smell."

A young girl dashed passed them, stopping briefly to salute Kouji.

"Oi," He called to her as she began to run off again, "pass on the message. We're gathering in ten minutes. And, tell Tarou to meet me in three." The girl saluted again and ran off.

They finally reached a door in the tunnel, like a maintenance room, nothing special, except this seemed to be the epicenter for all the commotion. People dashed in and out of it, some going back the way Naruto and the others had come, some running off in the opposite direction. Two boys were guarding this door as well, though they didn't seem as strict as the ones at the pothole. They saluted as Kouji passed by them mundanely.

"These three are with me," he made known to them and they didn't give Naruto, Sasuke or Sakura a second glance as the three passed behind Kouji.

They entered a circular, dank room, lit with lanterns like the tunnels around them. The arced walls were lined with desks, each with its own "teller", and were covered in what looked like small wooden plaques. Each plaque had a name scrawled upon it, some names were red, but most were black, and they were suspended on nails, as though they could be easily removed at any given time. About a quarter of the room, directly in front of them, had been sectioned off by a folding screen and a faded red pathway led from the door where they stood to directly under this screen and beyond, like the red carpet of a celebrity.

People dashed back and forth in this room around the tables, sometimes in groups, picking up things, dropping off things, being all-around busy, but not too busy to salute Kouji as he walk down the red aisle toward the folding screen. The leader pulled back the screen, holding it open for Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura, and then shut it firmly behind them. The three strangers stepped into the section and gazed around it as Kouji casually made his way around. Honestly, the fragment wasn't much different from the rest of the room, except there were no bustling people running to and fro. The faded red road lead them right into the base of a 9-inch high platform, upon which was a large table, covered in at least three stacks of paper. Kouji looked at it in disgust.

"Geez…" He grumbled as he stared as his work load, then turned around and smiled brightly at his guests.

"Well, what do you think?" He chuckled. "Welcome to the Raibara Secret HQ!"

All three scanned the place briefly.

"It's so lame." Naruto scoffed. "There's nothing cool about a stupid sewer and a table." He pouted. "You could've least put it in a tree or something."

Kouji crutched himself over to Naruto and grabbed the boy's cheek.

"You idiot! We couldn't conduct an operation like this from a tree. It's not a secret club house! Don't come to somebody's home and criticize it! Don't you have any manners!"

Naruto grabbed Kouji by the cheek as well.

"It's your fault for making it so lame!"

They pulled evilly at each other's faces.

Just then a passive-looking boy, the kind who looked like he never seemed to take much interest in anything, folded the screen door to the side and poked his head in. All for of them blinked at him for a minute.

"Ah, Kouji-sama," He mumbled, "I thought I heard you in here. You just missed Mitsurugi-taichou; he was here about a minute ago."

Kouji let go of Naruto's face and cleared his throat in a dignified fashion.

"Yes, Tsubara" He proclaimed, straightening out his shirt a little. "He will be in Sorano for a time."

The boy blinked passively. Sakura took this for curiosity.

"I'll explain more later. Anyway, has Tarou-kun shown up yet?"

"Yes, he just ran in." At that moment, the face of a young boy, one Naruto and Sasuke recognized from the youth hostile, shoved Tsubara out of the way. The heard the two heads collide with a sickening crunch, and, while this newcomer seemed unperturbed, Tsubara fell back on the other side of the screen.

"Sir, you wanted to speak to me, sir!" The young boy wheezed.

"Ahhh…" Kouji said briefly craning to look over the youth's shoulder, eyeing Tsubara's unconscious form suspiciously. "Yes, please come in Tarou-kun."

Tarou stumbled slightly over Tsubara and closed the screen behind him. He wheeled around standing at attention nervously, like someone had just rammed something up his butt.

Kouji crutched himself up onto the platform supporting his desk and consulted the wall behind it. Three plaques were pinned there, one labeled "Mitsurugi on the left, one labeled "Madoka" on the right, and one labeled with his own name in the middle, raised slightly higher than the other two. Mitsurugi's and Madoka's were fairly larger than those on the other side of the room, and Kouji's was fairly larger than theirs. Both Kouji's and Madoka's names were black, but, as Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura immediately noticed, Mitsurugi's name was red.

"Geez, she didn't even flip her name over…"

Kouji pulled Madoka's plaque off its nail and flipped it over, revealing her name also in red on the back, and replaced it this way on its post.

"Tarou," he called, before turning around. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of young Tarou's neck and he gulped. "You know you're mission. Madoka-taichou left around 30 minutes ago on route to Suiyo-Kame; if you leave now, you should be able to follow her without incident. I will expect a full report by the end of the night."

Tarou's face fell slightly. The look of confused distress covered him for a moment, but disappeared as he saluted Kouji.

"Yes sir!" He called and he turned on his heel and dashed out through the partition.

Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura blinked at the screen door for a second before turning to look at Kouji. The older boy picked up a paper from his piles and grimaced at it.

"Wait a minute…" Sakura gasped "You're going to have her followed!"

Kouji continued to stare that the piece of paper in his hand, although Sakura doubted how interesting it was. Slowly, he put it down and picked up another.

"You bastard…" Naruto stepped forward, his hands clenched. "How could you do something like that!"

Kouji wheeled around and hit Naruto in the head with a glare of absolute rage.

"Don't talk like you understand the situation." Kouji snapped mercilessly. Naruto ground his teeth and didn't back down.

"How the hell am I suppose to understand it then?" Naruto cried, his fingernails biting into his palms.

"We can make as many judgments as we want." Sasuke sighed and put his hands in his pockets. "If you want us to understand it differently, you'll have to explain it differently." Kouji eyed Sasuke with the same glare he'd given Naruto, but sighed with the realization that Sasuke was indeed right. He crumbled down into his chair and rested his forehead in his hand.

"I wouldn't have to have her followed if I knew what she was doing." He sighed, tense and stressed.

"Why don't you just ask her?" Sasuke asked snidely.

"I have." Kouji muttered exasperatedly, "She says it's none of my business… but it is, isn't it? I know she goes to Suiyo-Kame; that place is dangerous. If she's doing anything… questionable there, it would ruin the reputation of the Raibara group."

Kouji leaned back in his seat and stared at the rounded ceiling. For a moment it seemed like he had aged 20 years.

"No…" He muttered softly, "I need to know, because she's my friend. If she's in trouble, I need to know… so I can help her…" Kouji seemed lost for a moment, and if Sakura didn't know better, alone.

"Why doesn't she trust me anymore..?" He whispered to himself.

A still, conscious silence fell over the room, as though something important had just gotten up and left. Kouji continued to look up at the ceiling, lost in his own thoughts. Sakura clenched her hands to her chest. She looked down at the floor. She'd seen this situation before.

"Stupid!" Naruto hollered, the atmosphere not penetrating his think skull. "That doesn't make it okay!"

"Shut up, Naruto!" Sakura screamed. She squeezed her shirt harder.

"S-sakura-chan?"

It hurt. She could feel in beneath her sternum, right into her muscle tissue, Kouji's pain as well as her own. She'd been in that situation, hadn't she? Hadn't she been willing to do anything to find out Naruto's secret, even if it had been against his will?

"I need to know so I can help him!" She screamed.

"It's… not like that," She choked, "It maybe wrong… but it doesn't make you a wrong person for caring… does it?" She wiped her eye on her knuckle.

"Gah!" Naruto yelped, "Sa-Sakura-chan, don't cry! I'm sorry, I didn't mean it!"

"I'm not crying! Stupid!"

"Gah! Leggo!"

Sasuke stared up at the ceiling, at the many piled that made it up, over the sound of his teammates arguing.

Caring about someone enough to risk hurting them…?

"Huh…" He smirked, "Forget about it…"

Sakura looked up from her busy task of pulling Naruto's cheeks apart.

"You say something, Sasuke?" She tugged twice more on Naruto's face before letting him go with a snap.

"No," Sasuke replied as he stepped forward. "Anyway, enough with this. I'm sure it's some sort of stupid misunderstanding between you and her," He told Kouji passively.

Kouji smiled sadly.

"Yeah." He remained silent, as though thinking it over and then slammed his hands on his desk. "OK, back to work!" He announced.

"Speaking of which," Sakura cupped her fist in her hand. "I have to get back to the Karaoke Bar."

"Awwww…" Naruto sulked, "That's no fair…"

"Hey!" She scolded and pulled his cheek once more, "You want to eat tonight?"

She waved goodbye to her teammates and hurriedly took her leave.

Suddenly, a mischievous grin spread over Kouji's face as he was left with only Naruto and Sasuke.

"How do you two like paperwork?"

Author's Note: FINALLY! It's done! Took me a frikken lifetime, but now time to party! Yay for long chapters. By the way, I do, in no way, condone salking. Stalking is creepy... ews... so don't do it:Makes a mental note to leave Oralndo Bloom alone: ahem... ;). Anyway, I'm glad you liked this chapter! If you didn't... then oh well! XD Thank you everyone for your feedback in my ... er... poll? It looks like most people found this story the old fashioned way. Alright!

About the Letter: PFFT! You guys really think it'd be as lame as it sounds? Of course there's more to it than meets the eye! Can you find it, the "secret message"? Hint: This should be HELLA easy for Death Note fans! (I didn't plan it that way but whatever XD ). If you found it, feel free to post it, or tell me about it. I will announce the key at the beginning of next chapter... (though most of you should be able to figure it out.. >.>;; ). Gambatte!

Next Chapter: Sakura confronts Madoka? And why is a Festival Rep. looking for her? Also, the answer to the letter riddle... kukuku...