Note: Sorry if you got a sudden extra notification! I realized after posting I forgot to include an omake! Hopefully you enjoy it as much as I did~
Chapter 44
"Every day a new adventure is waiting to begin. In other words, protagonists don't get sick days."
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The wall clock ticked loudly as Sakura hunched over the sink, her gaze fixed on the minute hand even as she furiously scrubbed the dishes. Every second the minute hand ticked a little closer to twelve, the hour hand slowly moving to follow it. Once both aligned atop the twelve she abruptly set the dishes and rag on the counter and headed for the kitchen door, peeling off her rubber gloves and tossing it into a bin just outside the door.
Working at the hospital over the past two weeks had been exhausting. She had volunteered out of gratitude to them for helping her father, and she'd been put to work every day. As a medical trainee with minimal experience with the Mystical Healing Palm Sakura couldn't work with patients yet, but the hospital had plenty of menial work available for her. Laundry, cleaning bed pans, delivering messages, disinfecting rooms and equipment, organizing files...
The amount of work available to a low-rank trainee was endless, and the six-hour shifts often left her ready to crash when they ended. At least she got some practical experience out of it, and got to see real medical ninja in action. Today marked her last volunteer shift though, and Sakura felt no end of relief at that.
Patients and nurses dressed in scrubs gave her cheery greetings as she passed them in the halls, and she smiled and politely greeted them back, but she didn't slow down. She sighed as she stepped out into the warm sunlight, stretching her arms above her head with a small grunt before clapping.
"Okay, volunteering's done," she declared more to herself than anyone else. "Next stop, Ankichi's to pick up anmitsu, and then home for a nice relaxing bath!"
Hey, she'd been working hard recently. She deserved a reward.
Her plans would be disrupted though, because before she could reach her favorite sweets vendor she heard Ino's familiar voice call out to her. "Sakura! Hey!" Surprised, she stopped and turned to see her best friend jogging towards her, waving with an eager smile. Chouji trailed behind her, munching on chips like usual, though oddly enough Shikamaru didn't seem to be with them.
"Hey, Ino!" Sakura greeted, smiling as her best friend caught up to her. Ino placed her hands on her hips with an exaggerated sigh, leering at her with mock disdain.
"Where have you been? It feels like it's been ages since we talked!"
"Hey, I saw you just last week!" Sakura protested, and Ino huffed.
"You know that's not nearly good enough. I have half a mind to revoke your best friend status!" Her words sounded sharp, but they had a playful undercurrent to them and Sakura knew she wasn't serious. By this point Chouji had caught up, and she turned to greet him with a smile.
"Hey, Chouji," she greeted. "It's been a while. What've you been up to?"
"Not much, I guess," he replied with a shrug. "Just a lot of D-ranks. Team training's been called off for now."
"Yeah, I can relate," Sakura sighed. "I've been volunteering at the hospital every day. Naruto and Sasuke visited once, but my dad kinda chased them off on accident."
"By accident?" Chouji repeated, puzzled.
"...Don't ask. Anyways, no Shikamaru today?" While they might be teammates and old friends due to their clans' intertwined history, from what Sakura could tell Ino and Chouji didn't have too much in common. At the very least they didn't seem like they'd hang out all alone. Or... maybe something changed since Sakura last saw them?
"We met for lunch," Ino replied with a small huff. "But then he got called to the Hokage's office."
"He did?" Sakura looked at her in surprise. "Why?"
"Chuunin stuff, I guess," Chouji said with a shrug, and Sakura started to respond only to freeze as his words processed.
"Chuunin stuff? But isn't he...?"
"You mean you haven't heard?" Ino asked, smirking at her. "Yesterday Shikamaru got promoted." Sakura froze and gaped at her in shock, her brain struggling to comprehend her words. Shikamaru? Promoted? Fast promotions to Chuunin weren't exactly unheard of, but—they hadn't even been genin for more than six months. Even in wartime, that kind of time frame wouldn't be standard.
"He said Shino got promoted too," Chouji added, nibbling on a chip, and Sakura redirected her disbelieving stare towards him. Shino too? Two rookies!?
At this point Ino placed a hand under Sakura's gaping jaw and clamped it shut. "Hey, you're gonna catch flies with your mouth hanging open like that!" she teased. "You need to keep up appearances more than ever, especially since Team Seven is the only one without any chuunin." The smug taunt snapped her out of her stupor, and Sakura whirled to face her with a vicious scowl.
"Only because neither of them had a chance to actually fight!" she protested vehemently. "Sasuke-kun would totally have gotten promoted if he'd fought the tournament! And—" She stopped short and deflated slightly. She was going to say he could have won the tournament, but then she realized he'd have to beat Gaara in the first round to move on, and... yeah. Sakura might love Sasuke and think he was super-strong and talented, but she knew better than to expect him to be on the level of a rabid, unstable jinchuuriki.
Still. "He would have been promoted, even if he lost," she grumbled sullenly, crossing her arms with a pout. Ino just smirked, snickering condescendingly.
"Sure, he would have," she said with a sarcastic eye-roll, and Sakura's eye twitched.
"I dunno, he probably had a good shot," Chouji commented thoughtfully, perfectly devoid of the sarcasm his teammate exuded. "He was Rookie of the Year, and we heard from Asuma-sensei that you guys already went on an A-rank mission. And you probably could've been promoted too if you got through the preliminaries."
"Wait, me?" Sakura turned to gape at him, and Chouji shrugged.
"Yeah, you're smart. Not as smart as Shikamaru, but you're not as lazy as he is so you'd probably have the same odds he did." As he spoke Ino shot him a death glare, clearly annoyed by him praising Sakura.
"Hey, careful! Her forehead's big enough, if you praise her too much her head'll just get even bigger!"
"But... would it?" Chouji asked. "She's not as egotistical as you. She's nice."
"Wait, are you calling me mean!?"
"Uh... maybe a little?" Ino's eyes flashed dangerously at this, looking ready to explode, but before she could open her mouth Sakura suddenly spoke up.
"I... don't know about that," she said slowly. "I never really... did much. Even during the invasion, I was more support than anything, I don't think I have the experience or skills for promotion yet." The others paused and turned to look at her in mild surprise.
"Wait, seriously?" Ino asked, frowning. "Sakura, you're—"
"Haruno Sakura?" All three jumped in alarm as a monotone voice suddenly spoke next to them, spinning around while scrabbling for their kunai pouches on reflex. Panic flashed briefly in Ino's eyes, her whole body going tense, and Sakura and Chouji instinctively moved to partially block their friend. The bored-looking chuunin who'd approached them didn't look particularly impressed by the display, just sighed and rolled his eyes. "You are Haruno Sakura, right?"
"Um... yes?" Sakura responded hesitantly, slowly relaxing. "Why...?"
"You're wanted at the Hokage's office for a mission," he responded flatly, and then headed off, grumbling under his breath, "Can't believe I've been downgraded to playing messenger to a bunch of genin..." Blinking, after a moment Sakura sighed and looked at Ino.
"Uh, sorry, looks like I have to go," she said apologetically. Ino didn't respond right away though, just continued watching the chuunin as he left. Sakura frowned, watching her friend's hands tremble at her side. "Ino? Are you—"
"I'm fine," the blonde suddenly cut in. "I just—I, I need to go. Later." She turned on her heel and stalked away, not giving Sakura a chance to respond. The pinkette's shoulders slumped as she watched her best friend depart, and Chouji glanced at her with a frown.
"Uh, don't worry Sakura-chan, I'll go after her," he muttered, and Sakura smiled at him feebly.
"Would you? Thanks, Chouji." He nodded at her and quickly headed off after his teammate, while Sakura just sighed before turning and slowly trudging towards the academy. Ino had been so cheerful and normal during the meeting, she'd almost forgotten how just two weeks ago her best friend had stood in her family's flower shop arranging flowers in silence, her face pale and her pale blue eyes haunted and empty.
Seeing Ino now just reminded Sakura that no one had escaped the invasion unscathed, physically or mentally.
"Why the hell are there Tora missions now," Masaru grumbled under his breath, scowling as he trudged down the street. Next to him Kiba just groaned, and even Akamaru looked more annoyed than usual as he tiredly dragged his paws between them. Due to Konoha's current shortage of shinobi all the genin teams had been sort of scattered to carry out various D-rank missions across the village, and the unlikely trio had been summoned to catch the infamous feline terror.
No matter how Masaru looked at it, this team made absolutely no sense. Dogs hated cats. Cats hated dogs. Cartoons didn't just have cats and dogs fight for the heck of it, they based the rivalry on actual animals. Granted, Inuzuka ninken could get along better with cats than regular dogs, but that tolerance didn't apply to Tora. See, that tolerance applied to regular cats and ninneko. But Tora?
Tora wasn't a cat. Tora was the natural predator of genin.
"We should've just applied for more cleanup duty," Kiba groused, wiping his nose, and Masaru and Akamaru could only grunt in firm agreement.
As the two genin heaved tired sighs Akamaru abruptly perked up, sniffing at the air pointedly. Yipping once, he turned and veered away from the others, breaking into a run. In their exhausted states, Masaru and Kiba just turned to stare at each other and blinked slowly for about five seconds before suddenly registering Akamaru just ran off. Jolting like they'd been shocked, they spun around and chased after the puppy.
"Akamaru!? Where're you going now!?" Kiba called, looking to Masaru for assistance.
"Please smell Tora's corpse, please smell Tora's corpse," he chanted under his breath, eyes closed and hands clasped as in prayer even as he ran. Kiba stared at him for approximately two seconds, and then turned clasped his hands together.
"Please smell Tora's corpse, please smell Tora's corpse..."
The two continued to chant quietly until they finally caught up to the wayward ninken. To their immense disappointment, Akamaru did not, in fact, smell Tora's corpse. However, he had led them to a stand selling skewers with a decent variety of meats doused in savory-smelling sauces, yipping at them excitedly and wagging his tail. Surprised, the two boys exchanged one more look and then shrugged.
Barbecue skewers proved to be the perfect way to recover from the horrid mission they'd just endured. "I didn't even know Konoha had fish canneries," Masaru muttered as he bit into a meaty chicken dumpling on his skewer. Next to him Kiba nearly choked on his own mouthful of beef, his nose wrinkling in disgust.
"Ugh! Don't remind me," he groaned, sticking his tongue out. "That place smelled rank!" Akamaru whined in agreement, nudging Masaru's foot. When he glanced down he found two brown eyes staring up at him balefully, the puppy's little black nose twitching and wrinkling as if recalling the horrors of the odor. Staring at him silently, Masaru darted a brief glance towards the half-eaten skewer in his hand.
"I'm not falling for it," he declared flatly, taking a bite for emphasis, and Akamaru slumped to the ground with a dejected whine.
"You sure you don't want any of this sauce?" Kiba asked, gesturing to a small bowl filled with a golden-orange sauce. "It's pretty good." Masaru's face twisted in revulsion, nearly gagging on the bit of meat in his mouth, and he swallowed roughly before shaking his head.
"No way, that sauce uses sesame oil."
"What, you don't like sesame sauce?" Masaru grimaced, averting his gaze.
Face tinted red, eyelids swollen and puffy, hives breaking out at a rapid pace while gasping loudly for air—
"No," he replied thickly, shoving the thought away. Appetite lost, he dropped the skewer onto his plate and pulled out a small notebook with his clean hand, pushing the plate away to make room for it on the counter. As he opened it and flipped through the pages Kiba leaned over to peer at it, unmistakable curiosity glinting in his eyes.
"What's that?" he asked, his words slightly muffled and slurred.
"Notes on Foxfire," Masaru explained. "I've been working on extending how long I can hold it consistently outside battle." Back during the invasion Masaru had gotten some real first-hand experience with Foxfire, and the results had been... disappointing. He'd spent the past two weeks basically obsessing over how to improve it, so his notes had become very detailed.
"Oh yeah? What're you at?"
"Eleven minutes, thirteen seconds is the highest record. Average is nine minutes, thirty-eight seconds."
"Before the exams, you were at eight or nine minutes outside fighting, right?" Kiba leaned back on his stool, face screwing in concentration as he tried to remember the exact number. "You could only hold it for a bit over a minute when we actually fought though."
"Yeah. I want to try to get it up to at least an average of ten minutes by the week's end." He shrugged off-handedly, glancing over the recorded times. Ten minutes seemed impressive on paper, but that number only applied to his ability to maintain it under passive conditions. In combat, it would probably translate to two minutes of consistent firepower, three if he conserved his energy and stuck purely to taijutsu without trying to manipulate the shape.
Manipulating fire to make claws was good and fun, but flaming punches hurt just as bad.
"I don't use elemental jutsu, so I can't really help," Kiba commented with a shrug. "But for what it's worth, do you really need it constantly active?" The question gave Masaru pause, slowly raising inquisitive eyes to him.
"...Explain."
Kiba huffed and crossed his arms. "I dunno. Having your hand be on fire is awesome and'll hurt like hell, but I don't think you need it to always be on fire. With small fry, all you really need is one lucky shot and they're down for the count." Masaru frowned, leaning back in his seat as he contemplated it. Kiba had a point.
Truth be told, Masaru didn't think the duration to be the main problem, but instead how he applied it. Foxfire had room for so much versatility compared to other katon techniques, and his lack of experience limited his ability to use it to its full extent. However, in order to gain that experience he'd need to be able to use it long enough to actually practice... So extending the duration he could hold it still remained the most immediate step to mastering it.
"Mom could have just planted the knowledge in me," he said sourly, half-glaring at his notes. "She planted a fire dragon in my neck that's probably A-rank and I might never be able to use on my own. But she didn't even leave me any notes on the one jutsu I can use."
"Bummer," Kiba remarked dryly, clearly unsympathetic to his plight. Masaru just groaned and let his head fall onto the countertop atop his notes.
Sometimes—just sometimes—he really wished his mom had been more normal.
"...Hey, Masaru," Kiba said after a moment, sounding slightly hesitant and uncertain. "There's something I've been meaning to talk to you about—" He cut himself off with a startled yelp, and Masaru quickly lifted his head and nearly fell back with his own yelp as he saw a masked woman with purple hair standing behind them. He heard Akamaru growling before a white blur surged forward, aiming for the woman's legs. To her credit the ANBU didn't even flinch as she neatly dodged it, body-flickering slightly to the left to avoid the canine with minimal effort.
"Uchiha Masaru, the Hokage has requested your presence," she declared in an inflectionless voice, and Masaru blinked in surprise.
"Me?" he asked after a second. The ANBU operative gave a single nod.
"I have orders to escort you to the Tower at your earliest convenience," she expanded, and Masaru blinked again. Paranoia flared in his mind as memories of two men with similar masks flickered in his awareness, making his chest tighten. Suspecting someone who should for all intents and purposes be an ally stung slightly, but he'd nearly fallen for a fake in the past.
He glanced at Kiba, and when their eyes met the Inuzuka gave a small shrug. Scent's unfamiliar, but most ANBU are, his face seemed to say. Great. So no help there. Hesitating, after a moment Masaru looked back to the ANBU and slowly got to his feet. "I can head there on my own," he responded warily. Whether real or not he had to go to the Hokage now, if only to verify the woman's claims.
The ANBU offered no objections though, just gave another brief nod. "Very well. Report to the Tower immediately." With that she disappeared in a body flicker, and Masaru felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. The fact she didn't try to coerce him into accepting her escort services gave an air of legitimacy to the woman's ANBU uniform, so he decided the summons were most likely real.
"Thanks for the talk," he said, getting out some change to put on the table to cover his half of the meal. "I guess I'll see you later?"
"Yeah, guess so," Kiba agreed with a half-hearted shrug. "We can talk later." Something seemed... off, about his response, not as energetic as usual. Masaru wanted to press for more information, but after a moment he decided against it. Reporting to the Hokage took priority right now, and he could always talk to Kiba later.
The trip to the Tower proved uneventful, and when he arrived a chuunin assistant quickly ushered him to the Hokage's office, so he silently filed the ANBU with the otter mask as an actual ANBU. Perhaps he shouldn't be building up a mental list of active ANBU, but given his recent experience with imposters he felt justified in his paranoia.
When he arrived at the office though he paused in the doorway, surprised to find three others already waiting in front of the desk. Sasuke and Sakura turned to look at the door when it opened, their faces matching his surprise upon seeing him. However, instead of Naruto, the trio was rounded out by Shikamaru—
Is that a Chuunin Vest?
"Masaru, welcome," the Hokage greeted with a grandfatherly smile. "Now that you're here, we can begin the briefing."
"Briefing?" he repeated, slipping into mission mode. Missions typically didn't require an in-person pre-briefing with the Hokage, even the ones with mixed teams. His first one had been an exception since his own situation had been out of the ordinary, and it had also involved escorting the Kazekage's children.
"This is the first mission that Chuunin Nara Shikamaru will be charged with leading," the Hokage explained in an authoritative voice, answering his unspoken question. "As I'm sure everyone here is aware, promotions typically do not happen so early in one's career. While Shikamaru has demonstrated the necessary skills for a Chuunin, he still lacks the field experience needed to back it up. As such, this mission will be a trial for him to build that experience. Shikamaru, will you explain?"
"Yeah, sure," Shikamaru sighed, slouching even as the others shot him skeptical looks. Even as a chuunin, the lazy boy just never changed. "It's a basic item retrieval mission. Our intel says a traveling merchant caravan got their hands on an old war fan that's believed to have belonged to the First Hokage's wife."
"Wait, Mito-sama's tessen?" Sakura cut in, her eyes suddenly seeming to glow as she stared at him open-mouthed. Masaru flinched at the excited aura she suddenly exuded (were those sparkles?), while Sasuke twitched and inched away from his teammate ever so slightly.
"What's so special about a war fan?" he muttered under his breath, and twitched again when Sakura made a choking noise next to him.
"It's not just any war fan, it's Mito-sama's tessen!" she scolded, turning to shoot him the kind of scolding frown usually reserved for Naruto. "She wasn't just the First Hokage's wife, Mito-sama was one of the greatest fuinjutsu masters to ever exist! If that tessen did belong to her, it's probably covered in seals!"
"Yeah, that pretty much sums it up," Shikamaru acknowledged with a shrug. "If another village got their hands on it, they might be able to reproduce the seals on it and use it against us. But that said, we don't actually know if it belonged to her yet. Our job's to confirm if it's the real deal, and if it is, to retrieve it without giving away what it is. They know it's a war fan, but they don't know its significance."
"Ideally you will be able to pay for it peacefully," the Third Hokage added. "The village will provide a set amount of funds for it. However, if the price is unreasonable, or they realize what it is, you're authorized to steal it or use force. That said," he glanced to Shikamaru, "We don't want them to realize that the fan is your objective."
The newly-minted chuunin sighed and nodded, recognizing the cue to resume speaking. "The caravan's traveling on a set schedule, so we'll intercept them at a town near the border with Tea, a week from now. It should take two days to reach it, so we'll have a few days of downtime before they arrive. During that time we'll pretend to investigate rumors of a roving group of bandits—which," he added with a slump of his shoulders, "might be an actual thing. If it turns out to be true, there's a high chance of combat."
"So basically, two missions for the price of one," Masaru remarked dryly, and Shikamaru sighed.
"Yeah. Troublesome, but we'll at least get any bounties they have. I'll give some more details on those guys when we're actually closer. Anyway, total mission time is projected to take about two weeks max. Outside the travel time we'll be staying at an inn, so pack accordingly. We'll leave later today two hours from now. Any questions?"
"Um, Lord Hokage?" Sakura spoke up hesitantly, half-raising her hand as if to ask for permission to speak. "No offense, but... Why is Masaru here instead of Naruto?" She darted a glance at Masaru as she spoke, likely checking to make sure she didn't offend him, but he just shrugged. No feelings hurt there, he wanted to know too.
"Naruto-kun has some other business to attend to in the village," the Hokage replied simply. All three genin perked up at that, but when he didn't move to elaborate any further they reluctantly let it go. It wasn't their place to press for details, confidentiality and all that.
Naruto would probably fill them in on it afterwards anyway.
When no one else asked any questions, Shikamaru said, "Alright then, that's all I have to say. Go home to prepare, eat lunch and meet at the main gates in two hours." The three offered varying degrees of assent, and then quickly headed out.
"So we're going on a mission led by Shikamaru, huh?" Sakura mused as they walked down the hallway. "Wonder what that'll be like."
"We'll probably have to drag him out of bed every morning," Sasuke declared dryly, earning a soft snort from the kunoichi.
"At least he'll probably be on time," she giggled. "That'll be nice." Her comment made Masaru suddenly pause, his shoulders tensing.
"This is our first mission without a jounin," he said, and the others stopped, staring at him wide-eyed before exchanging small frowns.
"...I guess technically, it is," Sakura agreed lowly, and Masaru looked at her curiously before suddenly understanding.
Masaru had always been accompanied by jounin on missions, but Team Seven had been all on their own in Wave.
OMAKE: Meet the Dad
Haruno Kizashi had been anticipating his first meeting with Sakura's teammates for some time. His little blossom had put it off long enough, so when he heard them calling her name in the hall he decided to jump on the opportunity. Sure, he might be hospitalized and have only one leg, and he might be a little loopy from drugs, but no matter. Who knew when the next opportunity would arrive?
So it was with a great big smile that he hauled himself off his bed and into the hall to cheerfully greet the boys. While he'd never met them in person, he had seen Sakura's team photo, and thus had no trouble recognizing them. Even with his vision slightly blurred from the painkillers, he could never fail to notice the blinding orange jump suit and red-and-white fan which adorned only two people's backs.
"Sasuke, Naruto!" he called cheerily. "Hello! It's nice to meet you!"
He beamed at them happily as he awaited for a response, and then grew confused when the boys looked at him and screamed. Huh. What was that about?
oOoOo
Naruto and Sasuke had been chasing after Sakura to stop her from beating up the nurse when they'd heard a loud thump from one of the rooms behind them, prompting them to halt their pursuit of their errant teammate and investigate. That noise could be anything from a patient falling out of bed to a spy being subdued, and as shinobi they had a responsibility to investigate.
But this.
This went beyond their expectations.
The two boys turned just in time to see a large, tanned hand slap against the tile floor from inside a doorway, another hand slamming next to it and pulling forward. A mane of unkempt dusty pink hair slowly emerged into their line of sight, the strands falling away as the head tilted to reveal a bright blue eye for just a second before being shielded by a curtain of hair once more.
Nonsensical moaning drifted to their ears as the creature slowly dragged itself into the hallway, causing a cold chill to wash over the boys at the sight. Naruto's face drained of color and even Sasuke felt uncharacteristically uneasy, tensing up anxiously. The boys stood rooted to their spot by nerves, only able to stare as the thing emerged to reveal a sickly green hospital gown which was uncomfortably limp and flat where the right leg should be.
Its slowly turned towards their direction and began dragging itself their way, its lone leg flopping behind it. "Naruuutooo, Sassuukkeeee," the thing slurred, and its hair fell away just enough to reveal a too-large smile, the blue of its eyes glinting within the mane of dusty pink. "Hellloooo... Isssh nisedoo meeyuh..."
Naruto and Sasuke took in the sight of the horror-movie-esque creature crawling towards them, and promptly screamed. When a horde of nurses arrived to kick Team Seven out for causing a scene, they barely even complained.
Ultimately, Haruno Kizashi would forget their first meeting due to his drug-induced haze, but Naruto and Sasuke would find the scene haunting their nightmares for weeks to come.
So, any guesses on how this mission will go wrong?
