Let's start this from the beginning

Mission Gone Wrong

2 weeks earlier

"Finally! It's about time we got a mission! I can't wait to see Kiba's face when he comes back and realizes that his team isn't the only one who had one yet!"

Although Sasuke didn't disagree with Naruto's words, he still made sure to suppress the satisfied smile that tried to worm its way onto his face. Knowing their sensei, the man would surely find a way to turn any mischievous remark – regardless of whether it was actually a verbal one or just a facial expression – into an excuse for another brutal training session, and best friends or not, Sasuke had no intention of accompanying Naruto into one of those out of some sense of camaraderie.

Kakashi-sensei knew how best to torture- ehm, train them until none of them had any energy left to do anything but collapse in their beds at the end of the day.

"This is not a race, Naruto," Sakura said from where she was walking a bit ahead of them without even bothering to take her nose out of the book she was reading, having evidentially come to the same conclusion as Sasuke. "Whether they had their first C-Rank mission a bit earlier than us or not doesn't mean a thing."

That would sound a lot more convincing if you hadn't been just as upset as Naruto when we first heard about it, Sasuke thought but knew better than to say out loud. Right now, it would be more beneficial to agree with her to stop their sensei from putting him in the same category as Naruto. "She's right, you know. Nii-san always takes the approach that 'practice makes perfect' while Kakashi-sensei puts more emphasis on sufficient preparation before acting. These are two completely different approaches."

That was a bald-faced lie, of course. If there was one person who liked to overly prepare for everything down to the most unimportant detail, it was Sasuke's brother. It sounded convincing, however, and some subtle flattery towards Kakashi-sensei, who was walking a bit behind their group with his own book held before him, would certainly go a long way in endearing himself to him.

"Shut up, Sasuke! You were the one complaining the most about your brother taking Kiba and Shino on a mission while we only kept doing these stupid chores, weren't you? Don't act all stuck up now!"

Inwardly, Sasuke smiled triumphantly at Naruto's predictable exclamation. He had expected him to say something like that and had subsequently a response prepared already. "I was upset, yes, but I have realized by now that it was silly. Like Sakura said, at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter that they went on a mission a bit earlier than us."

Objectivity, flattery, and maturity, those were the three things he had tried to demonstrate in order to avoid whatever training session Kakashi-sensei was almost guaranteed to hold for Naruto after his earlier remark.

If this doesn't work, nothing will.

"Oh, come on! There's no way you are already over it! You always sulk for days when Itachi doesn't pay you enough attention!"

As much as Sasuke hated to admit it, that remark was almost enough to make him forget the show he was trying to pull off and correct this gross misunderstanding, and only the sudden sound of a book slamming shut kept him from throwing away all his hard work in one fell swoop.

"Naruto!" Sakura exclaimed, her volume matching his. "Do you need to shout everything you say? It's impossible to concentrate when your voice is bursting my eardrums!"

"But you're shouting as well!"

"I'm not!"

Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Sasuke wisely kept out of this fight. If they wanted to behave like little children, that was fine with him, but he had absolutely no intention of lowering his sensei's opinion of him when he had just barely avoided doing something stupid that would have resulted in just that.

(Meanwhile, Kakashi raised his book a little bit higher to hide the knowing smile that even his mask couldn't fully conceal, already musing about what kind of punishment- ehm, training would be appropriate for all three of his cute little students.)

However, now that Sasuke no longer had to participate in the conversation, his thoughts were free to wander while he used only the bare minimum of attention necessary to keep alert of his surroundings.

While the previous conversation might not have appeared like anything special at first, it was, in fact, the first time in a while that Naruto acted as one might expect from him.

It wasn't as if he had been an entirely different person or anything silly like that, of course, but it wasn't only Sasuke who had noticed his friend's change in attitude over the last few weeks. Ever since Jiraiya – and on that note, Sasuke still didn't know why one of the Sannin took such a personal interest in Naruto even after all the years he had been friends with him – took him away from training for some kind of conversation without so much as a word of protest from their sensei, he had been more silent and absorbed into his own thoughts than before. He pretended to be just fine when he asked him what was going on, but Sasuke wasn't blind. He could see clear as day that something was bothering him.

Now, he wasn't one of these people who claimed friends should tell each other everything. As far as he was concerned, everyone had things they wanted to keep to themselves. He certainly did. That had nothing to do with lack of trust but was simply a matter of not wanting to.

That being said, the longer Naruto's weird mood continued, the more tempted Sasuke became to forget all about that opinion of his and force some kind of confrontation to make Naruto tell him what was going on. Seeing him going back to normal like this was therefore a relief in more ways than one: not only was it great that he apparently got over whatever had been bothering him, but Sasuke also couldn't help but feel glad he ultimately wouldn't be forced to initiate a conversation the both of them would definitely find extremely uncomfortable.

Just because he avoided bringing the topic of his behaviour up didn't mean others did as well, though.

The last time they met their friends, shortly before Team 8 left the village for their mission, Kiba and Chōji had been very insistent about trying to make him talk while Shino lurked in the background with a thoughtful look hidden behind his high collar, and even Shikamaru had stopped complaining about how annoying everything was in favour of studying Naruto like one would an interesting puzzle.

At the end of the day, no one was any the wiser, however.

Sakura, too, had become more and more confused about his behaviour until she eventually reached a point where she barely even tried to hide her worry.

It has to be said that the two of them weren't exactly close friends. It wasn't as if they actually disliked each other, of course, and it was impossible to go through all these tedious D-Rank missions together without growing closer to each other in the process, but both their personalities regularly clashed over the silliest things. These fights were mostly friendly in nature, but from time to time, things escalated to the point where someone else had to interfere.

In a way, that wasn't all that different from his own relationship with Naruto, really, although they had at least the advantage of having known each other for years and being therefore in a position where they both knew when to stop. Not that they always listened to their own common sense, mind you, but it was at least a possibility.

Anyway, regardless of what their relationship might ultimately be, none of her misgivings stopped Sakura from insisting on doing a personal examination to see if anything was wrong with Naruto, and while she might have insisted that she did that primarily to test the medical skills of hers she was so proud of, Sasuke was damn sure that was only an excuse to hide her true intentions.

Needless to say, the result of that examination was that Naruto was perfectly healthy, giving no hint as to what it was that was bothering him.

To be honest, if someone had told him before his graduation that he and Naruto would end up on a team with Sakura and actually get along with her, he would probably have laughed in their face. While his Academy days weren't nearly as terrible and plagued by 'fangirls' as Shisui had tried to convince him they would when he was younger, Sakura and Ino had at times acted pretty similar to the girls Shisui had told him about. The idea of cooperating and productively working with her seemed like nothing more than a daydream back then.

Surprisingly enough, however, it turned out that her love for medical Ninjutsu trumped her crush on him. When given the opportunity to showcase her skills, he was immediately all but forgotten.

In hindsight, it was probably only thanks to this fact that the three of them had managed to cooperate so well during Kakashi-sensei's bell test. Were it not for her extreme fondness of that particular field, they might very well have failed.

In the privacy of his mind, Sasuke actually thought that her preference for medical Ninjutsu bordered almost on obsession – not that he would ever say that out loud, of course. Sakura regularly brought homemade bentō boxes to their training sessions for the four of them, and he had absolutely no interest in somehow making her angry enough to stop doing so. Now that his mother was regularly out on missions again and Itachi had moved out, he was more and more often forced to prepare his lunch himself, and Sasuke would be the first to admit that his cooking skills were rather, well... lacking.

Noticing that his thoughts were spiralling increasingly into unnecessary directions, he cleared his mind with a shake of his head.

Now really wasn't the time to get distracted by such things. Yes, Naruto seemed to be fine and their teamwork with Sakura was better than anything they could have ever hoped for during their Academy days, but a mission wasn't the time and place to muse about such things.

With newfound resolve, Sasuke began to fully concentrate on their surroundings.

After all, with both his teammates being still occupied with each other, it was up to him to make sure they didn't run into an ambush. Unlikely considering they had been on the road for only an hour so far and were consequently far too close to Konoha to encounter anyone who might possibly try to ambush them, but one never knew what could happen.

Consequently, at least one of them had to be alert, and for now, that would be him.

Ultimately, their mission was fairly simple.

All they had to do was deliver a scroll given to them by the Hokage to the noble in charge of a small town right on the border of the Land of Rivers before heading back home with a scroll given to them by the aforementioned noble to be delivered to the Hokage. Despite its size, the town was very important, serving as a trading hub for not only the Lands of Fire and Rivers but the Land of Wind as well. Although Naruto knew that the message couldn't possibly be very important if a freshly graduated Genin team was the one tasked with delivering it, he had been excited nonetheless when they were first told about the mission. After all, this was their first C-Rank mission, they would be allowed to leave Konoha for the first time in their lives, and they would also get to visit another settlement!

Needless to say, while this mission might not be something exciting like rescuing a princess from the clutches of some evil criminals or fighting a missing-nin, Naruto had still very much looked forward to it. However…

This is so booooring!

He hadn't expected how little there was to do while they travelled. On the first day, just being on the road had been a lot of fun. Naruto had still been in high spirits then. It took six days to reach the town, though, and by then, he had been absolutely done with the utter boredom of the situation. Nothing ever happened! Then, when they finally arrived at their destination, they didn't even stay there for long! They arrived in the evening, greeted their host, slept in his mansion for the night, and departed once more the very next morning.

I wanted to check out the town damnit!

Now, at the end of the second day after his team had begun their journey back home, there was nothing left of his initial good mood.

"I still think we could have stayed in the town for at least a day or so…"

Considering neither Sakura nor Sasuke, both of which loved to argue with everything he said just as much as he loved to intentionally rile them up, told him to shut up, they clearly agreed with that sentiment.

Kakashi-sensei, on the other hand, merely sighed. "As I already told you several times, Naruto, this isn't a pleasure trip but a mission. As much as I would have liked to stay a bit longer there myself, this is one of the times where finishing the mission is more important than our comfort. Even if this delivery is not so urgent as to require the utmost haste, we cannot afford to dawdle unnecessarily."

Unexpectedly, it was Sakura who spoke up next – although considering she had been very vocal about looking forward to strolling through the market, it was probably not all that surprising after all.

"Well, technically, if we had stayed there for, say, one more day, we would have had the chance to rest some more and consequently would have been able to travel much quicker now. One could even argue that we would have arrived at Konoha much earlier that way!"

"Exactly!" Naruto immediately voiced his support. "You always say we need to think ahead, don't you, Sensei? It would have made much more sense to take a short break before hitting the road again!"

Sasuke nodded, not bothering to say it out loud but not trying to keep his agreement a secret either.

Unfortunately, their sensei didn't play along.

"Oh? Are you telling me that just travelling from Konoha to that town already took such a toll on you that you needed a day off?" Behind his mask, Kakashi-sensei's face twisted into an apologetic look that even a child would have easily recognised as fake. "If so, I sincerely apologise. I should have trained you better. I will organize a special training regime for you guys as soon as we're back at Konoha, and once you're done with that, I promise you will be able to run the entire way to the town and back in a day without even breaking a sweat!"

"No, that's not what I-"

"That's really not-"

"But Sensei-"

"Ah, no need to thank me," the man interrupted them, intentionally misreading their reactions with what he probably thought was a humble expression. "I'm your sensei, after all. I'm just doing my job."

Just a few weeks ago, Naruto would have complained about the unfairness of it all, but by now, he knew better. Trying to change their sensei's mind would result in only even more training, and while Naruto had more stamina than both his teammates combined, Kakashi-sensei always made sure to come up with some particularly strenuous program for him that left him just as exhausted as Sakura and Sasuke.

This is sooo annoying…

So, just like he always did when he was annoyed with something, Naruto made sure that Sasuke was in just as much of a bad mood as he was – not that he technically had to do much to manage that at the moment, of course. Sasuke was just as affected by their sensei's attitude as he was. As was Sakura, too. Logic had never stopped him before when he wanted to vent a little, though, and he wouldn't let something silly like that get in his way now either!

He folded his hands behind his head and adopted a deliberately thoughtful voice. "Well, in that case, maybe we should hurry up a bit? It would be a great warmup, and we wouldn't want to keep the old man waiting, right?" He then looked directly at Sasuke to make sure the other boy realized his next comment was directed at him specifically. "Besides, I didn't get to finish furnishing my new apartment before we set off, y'know, and I really want to get back to that!"

Sasuke's failed attempt at suppressing his annoyed groan was music to Naruto's ears. "Naruto, I swear, if you start talking about how 'awesome' your new place is even just one more time, I'm going to-"

"Oh, don't be such a killjoy," he interrupted his friend, knowing all too well how much he hated that. "There's really no reason to be jealous! I told you, you're always welcome to come over whenever you want!"

"I'm not jealous because you're – for once – right in that there's indeed no reason to be jealous! What's so great about living on your own anyway?"

"You're only saying that because you're still sad about Itachi moving out."

Sasuke tried to shrug that comment off, but Naruto knew he had struck a nerve judging from the throbbing vein on his forehead. "Why should I? I'm spending more time at his place than at home anyway, so it's not like I don't get to see him anymore. It's actually quite nice because I don't need to do any chores there – something which you will have to do all the time now that you live on your own, I might add."

Naruto shrugged, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Sakura and Kakashi-sensei had slowly but surely gotten some distance between themselves and him and Sasuke but ignoring it for the moment. That, too, was an increasingly regular turn of events whenever they got into an argument.

"Eh, it will be fine," he said dismissingly with a wave of his hand. "The apartment isn't that big. How much work can it be?"

That was true. It was more than spacious enough for a single person, the two weeks he had spent there before the start of this mission had pretty much proved that, but at the end of the day, it really wasn't very large. And sure, it might have gotten a tiny little bit messy in that time, but that wasn't because he was some kind of slob who throw all his stuff into some corner before forgetting about them! The matrons at the orphanage would have never allowed such behaviour. No, it was because he just moved in and didn't get to finish putting everything in its place yet.

Really!

Also, all these recent revelations about the Yondaime being his father – which was awesome! – and him being the host of the Nine-Tails – which was much less awesome – were kind of distracting, so cleaning hadn't been his top priority. That would change as soon as he got home, though! Sasuke wouldn't even be able to recognise the apartment the next time he came to visit!

"You're saying that now," Sasuke replied with a smug smirk. "Let's see if you still think like that in a month from now."

"Oh, we will!"

And if worst came to worst, he could just create a few Shadow Clones to help him out. I'm so glad Itachi taught me that technique. It's a real lifesaver! After all, it would be a real shame if the nice apartment got ruined because he couldn't clean up after himself.

The best thing about his new home was probably its location, being right next to the main entrance to the Uchiha district. It literally took less than five minutes to get to Sasuke's house, even if you were just walking leisurely. Combine that with the fact that it was only a stone's throw away from Konoha's largest marketplace and one could understand Naruto's initial surprise not only when the Sandaime showed him the place but particularly when he was told about its price.

Even after the old man explained that the village would bear a certain percentage of the costs, the rent was still unbelievably cheap. Naruto had thought he would need some of the money he had apparently inherited to pay for it all, which would have sucked because it wasn't that much, but in the end, he could probably make ends meet with just the stupidly high number of D-Rank missions his team was doing – even if only barely.

Which in turn meant he could use that money for other things. Both the Sandaime and Jiraiya had told him to not spend it all at once and to put some away, and Naruto definitely planned to do just that, but there were so many awesome things he wanted to buy! Maybe he could even buy a sword and convince Kakashi-sensei to teach him how to use it? Or maybe some new clothes?

"I hate to interrupt you guys," Kakashi-sensei suddenly interrupted them without looking remotely apologetic, "but I just remembered something important."

Naruto and Sasuke turned around simultaneously, but it was the latter who spoke up first. "Something important? Has it to do with the mission?"

"Ah, yes, I guess you could say so."

"So do we need to get back to the town and-"

"No, no," their sensei spoke up before any of them could get their hopes up. "Nothing of that sort, I'm afraid. In fact, it doesn't even affect you guys all that much in the first place." Then, before either of them could reply, he opened one of the many pockets on his flak jacket and pulled out the scroll they needed to deliver to the Hokage and casually tossed it to Sakura who fidgeted with it for a moment and almost dropped it to the ground before she could get a proper grip on it. "Here, take that for a bit, would ya?"

"But Sensei-"

"I have some very important Jōnin stuff to do. Very important, and even more dangerous, so I will go alone. You three just focus on finishing the mission." He gave them a one-eyed smile, hand raised in farewell. "See ya later."

A moment later, his form vanished in a puff of smoke.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura looked at each other, their expressions varying from shocked to surprised and even annoyed. Most of all, however, all three of them were exasperated.

"So," Sakura began after a few seconds of awkward silence, "what do you think this was all about?"

"Who knows?" Sasuke replied while pinching the bridge of his nose. "I don't think there's anyone who really knows what's going on inside his head. Even my brother said he's a total nutjob."

Naruto blinked. "Wait, Itachi said that?"

"Well, maybe not in so many words, no." He at least had the decency to look a little sheepish at that admission. "I can read between the lines, though, and that's definitely what he meant."

Somehow, Naruto doubted that, but he honestly agreed too much with the sentiment to feel the motivation to argue with Sasuke about it. "Whatever… I guess we should move on, then?"

Sakura nodded with a sigh while putting the scroll Kakashi-sensei had given her into her bag. "We might as well. Not much else we can do anyway, and I really want to get home and take a bath already."

"Now that sounds like a plan. Besides, what's the worst that can happen?"

With these optimistic words, they continued their journey toward Konoha.

Less than an hour later, they walked into an ambush that would soon prove to be only the first of many.

Some quick thoughts about Sakura:

I really don't care for her. However, I think all the hate she gets is absolutely ridiculous, especially when it's not even said in jest but actually meant seriously, so don't expect any Sakura bashing in this fic. In fact, don't expect bashing of any kind. Even though I doubt Sakura will ever get a POV part in this story, I will give her somewhat of a power-up to make sure she's actually a credible member of Team 7.

My headcanon for why Sakura was so obsessed with Sasuke in the series is that she literally had nothing else in her life; she had no real hobbies and her only "real" friend was Ino, with whom she shared a rivalry over Sasuke. In my story, she discovered her love for medical ninjutsu much earlier since Tsunade, who returned to the village much earlier than in canon, offered classes to the Academy students. She also reconnected with Ino through these classes. Given that she has therfor other things to occupy her time with that don't have anything to do with him, her crush on Sasuke is much less prominent.