The Ninja of the Night and The Writers of Hentai

Book 2: Lime

"Marshmallows and cup ramen?" groaned Sasuke, looking up from lighting the campfire to see what was on the menu for the night.

Naruto gulped down a marshmallow he had sneaked on the side. "Hey, it's what's for dinner." Sasuke scowled at him. "Don't look at me like that, you jerk. I didn't have time to pack anything else!"

"A true Shinobi is prepared for anything," declared Sasuke self-righteously.

"Oh, yeah? Well, what food did you bring, Mr. Shinobi?"

"... I brought Zelda. I don't need food."

"Ha, ha! I'm better than Sasuke! I'm better than Sasuke!" chanted Naruto, sticking his tongue out at his fellow ninja. "In your face, Uchiha!"

Sasuke pulled out a handy dandy throwing knife and prepared to shut Naruto up, for good, but right before he could throw it, Haku moved into his line of sight and he had to abort the mission.

"Ramen? Marshmallows?" Haku asked in a completely different tone than Sasuke's. "Can... can... may we have some, too?"

Naruto patted his head. "Of course you can. There's plenty to go around."

"Really? We can?" whimper the masked boy in a voice to break your heart, throwing his arms around Naruto's neck. "I LOVE you!"

Naruto grinned in that goofy, love-struck way that the others had come to recognize during their journey.

"Haku! Stop!" Zabuza barked. The boy released Naruto and turned towards the voice.

"Zabuza-sama! They have FOOD!"

"Haku!" Once again, Haku's head snapped towards Sasuke, who handed him a kettle. "Here. Go fill this with water."

"Yessir," nodded Haku, running off.

"You'll have to forgive him," Zabuza apologized. "Our food ran out the third day, and we haven't eaten since."

"How long have you been out here?" Sasuke asked curiously.

"A week, maybe longer... I've lost count."

"Whoa."

"Tell me about it. This place has been screwing with our hormones, too. I'm not usually this nice, believe me, and the kid is never this hyper. It's like we're PMSing..."

Sasuke bit his lip and glanced over at the expedition's leader, Naruto. The more he heard about this place, the less he wanted to stay. "Naruto, how is this going to help us? I mean, we don't stand a chance against an entire village of upper level writers, and the longer we stay out here, the worse things get... Let's just go home."

"Sasuke, there's a fic out there where I get pregnant. Ok? PREGNANT! I've had enough of being the victim of these guys' evil whims, and when they start attacking my friends... I'm going to stop them! I'm not going to put up with it anymore!"

"Well, I'm not going to make out with Haku just because you have the hots for Sakura."

"It's a little late for that, isn't it?"

"The authors made me. And you should have woken us up a LOT sooner."

"I was trying. If you ask me, you didn't want to wake up."

"Or maybe you just suck at waking people up, just like you suck at everything else."

"Take it back!" howled Naruto, lunging at his rival.

They were still fighting when Haku returned with the kettle, and they weren't showing any signs of stopping in the near future, so the remaining pair decided to leave them be and start getting dinner for themselves. Haku pulled out some of his multi-purpose acupuncture needles and speared a few marshmallows on them, holding them out over the fire.

"Y'know, kid, it's probably not the healthiest thing to not eat for four days and then fill up on marshmallows..." Zabuza remarked. Haku wordlessly turned to him and offered up a weapon-turned-marshmallow-roaster as the Naruto/Sasuke dust cloud rolled around in the background.

"You're never going to become Hokage, dunce!"

"You're never going to score, A-hole!"

"Sakura hates you!"

"You don't have parents!"

"Naruto, you idiot, you don't have parents, either."

"Shut-up!"

With a small sigh, Zabuza began roasting a marshmallow.

"Um... Naru— Naruto? Hey... Um..." Haku tried, unsuccessfully, to catch the blond boy's attention.

"Oh, just eat your noodles. He already said it was ok," Zabuza groaned, starting on his own oh-so-filling dinner.

"But... shouldn't we ask first?"

"Haku, eat the damn ramen before you pass out."

At the word "Ramen", Naruto's head snapped up, and he let go of Sasuke (whose head he had been slamming repeatedly into a tree), to go get something to eat.

"Food food food food food!" Happily slurping down ramen, Naruto smiled evilly at Sasuke, who was still dusting himself off and picking tree bark out of his face. "Sasuke, you don't get any ramen. After all, you brought Zelda, so you don't need food, and the rest of us are starving."

"I didn't want your stinking instant noodles anyway," Sasuke snapped, "I bet it's filled with MSG, and you're all going to die of cancer."

The others went back to eating, but after a little bit, Zabuza started watching Sasuke, to keep his mind off the unsatisfying meal he didn't have any choice but to eat. Naruto would look up once in a while too, and Sasuke would defiantly stick his tongue out and go back to Zelda, but when the other boy wasn't looking, his starving counterpart was biting his lip and staring hungrily at the other guys contentedly eating.

A few minutes of watching this heartbreaking spectacle, and Zabuza couldn't help but intervene. Carefully avoiding eye contact by staring at the fire, he stuck his own cup o' noodles in front of Sasuke. "Here. We're going to need all our strength for this. I can't have you slowing us down."

Sasuke didn't need telling twice. He grabbed the cup quickly and started his dinner, although he did twitch once in a while, like he was fighting an urge to look over his shoulder. "I keep thinking Master Kakashi's going to jump us and tell us we passed our exam."

Naruto laughed, and Zabuza, thinking of the two young ninjas' earlier fight, asked them, "How does he deal with you two all the time? I go crazy just keeping Haku out of trouble, and he's a good kid."

Naruto and Sasuke looked at each other, and shrugged. "He mostly just ignores us,"

"In favor of his ... cough, literature," added Naruto with a grin.

"Or in favor of giving Sakura lessons, if you know what we mean," snickered Sasuke. Forgetting their feud, the pair exchanged a high five.

"..." said Zabuza.

"..." said Haku.

"Yeah, that's how we reacted, too," Naruto told them.

"It is odd though," Zabuza mused, mostly to put the thought of Kakashi-on-Sakura action out of his mind, "You boys probably don't realize it, but your teacher is a big deal in the Ninja world. I mean, he's huge. I find it hard to believe that Kakashi of the Sharingan Eye would have nothing better to do than make sure that three twelve-year-olds don't kill each other before they kill their opponent."

"We've wondered about that, too," Sasuke admitted.

"Far as we can tell, he's doing community service for something, but he won't tell us what," Naruto shrugged.

"We think he might have robbed a convenience store."

"Or killed a guy."

"Or sold crack to school kids."

"Or graffitoed the wall around the village."

"Or forgotten to pay a library fee."

Haku yawned. Everybody turned to stare at him.

"Yeah, how are we going to set up a guard tonight?" Sasuke pondered. "Two people is the traditional night watch, but that doesn't seem wise under the circumstances."

"And one person might wake up someone else while the others are sleeping," cautioned Naruto.

"But if we don't post a guard, and someone wakes up in the night, the same thing could happen," Zabuza reasoned.

"We could just keep mo- mo-," Haku tried unsuccessfully to suppress another yawn, "moving all night. We'd get to the village faster."

"Get to our deaths faster, you mean," Sasuke interrupted. "We won't be in any shape to fight if we haven't slept in days."

"Well, looks like only one of us is going to be sleeping at a time tonight," Naruto shrugged. "It's the only option we have."

Haku yawned again.

"If you boys don't mind," Zabuza nodded deferentially towards Naruto and Sasuke, "I think you should take the first sleep, Haku."

"Are yo- yo-," Yawn. "you sure?"

The rest nodded resolutely. "Get some rest," Naruto advised kindly. "We're going to stay up awhile bitching about Sensei anyway."

"Thank you." Haku stretched out on the ground, and seemed about to fall asleep, when he sat up. "Since you're all keeping guard... can I take off my mask?"

"Sure. Don't worry, we'll keep you safe," Sasuke promised, feeling very grown up that he could make such a promise. No wonder Naruto liked babysitting so much. There was something very comforting about having a little kid look up to you... even if the "little kid" was about your age and much much more powerful than you.

"Mmm. What a relief," sighed the "little kid", removing his mask (which he had obviously been wearing for quite some time), curling up, and falling asleep.

The remaining three ninjas talked for a little while longer, but soon lapsed into an awkward silence, broken only when they found that they had all three, simultaneously and unconsciously, moved slowly over to where Haku was sleeping.

Completely unaware of the lurking menace above him, Haku smiled peacefully.

"Aw..." gasped the others.

"He's... so cute," breathed Naruto, blushing faintly.

"Look at him smile!" cooed Sasuke, the slightest trickle of blood running down his nose.

"He's a very pretty boy," sighed Zabuza.

"Hai," nodded the others.

And they sat there for a few minutes, just admiring slumbering Haku.

Deeply immersed in a very nice dream about leaves, Haku suddenly became aware of breathing above him. He opened one eye.

"What's going on?" he asked drowsily, tiredly rubbing his eyes.

Naruto and Sasuke squealed like two schoolgirls. "So adorable!"

Zabuza seemed to wake up, a little reluctantly. "We were thinking... maybe you'd better leave the mask on... just as a precaution."

Haku glanced sleepily at Naruto and Sasuke, and decided he didn't really want to know. He put the mask back on and went to sleep again.

Day one is over at long last.

Poor Zabuza's molestable little friend,

Haku: Haku. My name's Haku.

Me: Whatever.