Red Moon


Chapter 9


Night fell upon the Mist Village or at least what was left of it and our Anbu squad was settling the camp to rest.

Sakura had been unconscious since they departed from the destroyed center of said village and to tell the truth, Neji and Shikamaru were starting to feel worried about the fact that she was still sleeping. Maybe she was just too exhausted, they thought.

But maybe, she was in pain. Bad thing is that non of them knew a thing about healing only the elemental for surviving like bandaging or putting a band-aid…which was probably not going to help that much since her wounds were far to serious to just put on a colorful band-aid and say 'There you go kiddo…go on and keep playing!' In fact, we are talking about nearly no skin on her arm and god knows what else that is keeping her from opening those pretty green eyes of hers.

Neji was covering her trembling body with his cloak since hers was now mere pieces of black fabric kept together by the grace of god and the fact that it was snowing didn't help that much.

White orbs watched every move she made hoping that somehow she could wake up. Neji lifted her wounded arm ever so carefully so he could change her bloodied bandages into new fresh ones that they found on her backpack. Maybe he didn't know that much about medicine but his common sense told him that if her arm didn't heal fast, it was going to catch a nasty infection.


Shikamaru was seated on a rock at the other side of the camp reading some books he found on her bag, hoping top find a jutsu that could help them heal her. Till this moment…he found nothing.

'No…no…no…no! What is this? A recipe book?'

Shikamaru was about to switch the book when he found something that could be useful. It read:

Regenerating Potion

WARNING!

To create this potion you must have perfect chakra control for you must screw thing up at the moment of mixing the ingredients.

Shikamaru lifted a brow at the strange explanation but as he took a closer look, it did look like Tsunade's handwriting.

First of all, in a cup of green tea pour our special herb medicine and let it boil. When it starts boiling remove it from the fire and start putting the ingredients listed at the end of the page.

You must do it fast or it won't work. Now that you have everything in there, apply Rasengan no Jutsu and mix it perfectly until you see it change in color and texture.

You must NOT drink it; you have to apply it to the wounded area. Then you know what to do.

Ingredients:

Snow mushroom (4)

Slug mucus (1/2 cup)

Midnight flowers (2)

Lavender (1 cup)

Shikamaru sighed. This was complicated, maybe too much for his liking and the worst of all, he did not know what Tsunade meant by 'You know what to do' and where to find those ingredients.

But there was something that amused him. The fact that for this potion one needed to do the Rasengan and had to summon a slug. He knew Sakura could summon slugs but he never imagined that she could make Naruto's secret weapon.

Maybe there was something more in this girl that the naked eye could see even if it was the naked eye of a genius and a Byakuugan user.

Neji unwrapped her arm and noticed that the wound was closing slowly and it was smaller than what he saw at first. Was he hallucinating?

His brows furrowed in confusion and without thinking it, the Byakuugan appeared in his eyes. He saw how fast the tissue regenerated itself with small wires of chakra helping the cells divide.

It was indeed Sakura's chakra. Now he understood everything, she was in some kind of trance so she could concentrate more in healing herself. He read about that in an old book of the Hyuuga library. By what he read, she would wake up in 24 hours.

" Eh Neji! I think I found something for Sakura"

Neji turned his head towards Shikamaru as an elegant eyebrow lifted. He rose from his position and walked swiftly to the other side of the camp.

"I found a regenerating potion in one of Sakura's books" Shikamaru said extending his arm so Neji could take the piece of paper and read it properly.

"I think this won't be necessary"

"And why is that?"

"Because Sakura is already healing herself"

"What?"

"Yeah, she is in some kind of trance capable of healing wounds in 24 hours"

"And you kept this information from me because?"

"I just found out"

Shikamaru's eyebrow twitched in annoyance. He sighed and muttered his so famous quote.

"Troublesome…" Shikamaru said while thinking 'All that research for nothing…I burned my eyes trying to read in this damn dim light for nothing! God…'

"At least she is healing herself" Shikamaru managed to say

"Yeah"

Suddenly a loud grumble filled their ears. Both looked at each other and furrowed their brows in confusion. In other words, they meant 'I didn't do it'

Another grumble this time louder appeared and now both heads turned in the direction of a small girl holding her stomach with her hand and a boy looking at the girl. They totally forgot of their little companions and obviously they were hungry. God knows when was the last time they had eaten.

They were to worried with their female teammate to even notice the two survivors of Mist village.

Nami (the little girl…in case you don't remember) looked at the two ninjas looking at her and a faint blush appeared on her baby cheeks.

"Sorry…?" she mumbled

Shikamaru sighed once again. He noticed he had been doing that a lot and scolded himself for that even if he knew that he was going to continue sighing for the rest of his existence. It was another way of saying Troublesome.

After a few minutes, they were eating in awkward silence. Each minute passed as hours, the stares were unbearable and the deafening silence stood untouched. No one dared to speak a word or break the stares.

Nami watched Shikamaru with curiosity and then looked at Neji. A glint showed in her eyes as she left her finished meal on the ground and walked slowly towards the Hyuuga almost afraid.

Shikamaru and Kai (Boy) followed her with their eyes as Neji pretended not to notice.

Nami arrived to her destiny and extended her arm letting her hand touch the long strands of hair falling gracefully to the prodigy's back. She let her hand slip and immediately clasped her hands together and smiled widely.

"Your hair is so pretty!" She said and then giggled

Then hell broke loose.


Kai let his fork fall and widened his eyes in shock. Shikamaru was other thing he was smirking and was resting the urge of laughing.

Neji stopped moving. Shadows covered his face concealing it from the sight of the three people before him. No one could see his eyebrow twitching not the scowl forming in his mouth but they could see his hand folding the fork in his hand as if it was made of paper.

His mind echoed the words said to him over and over again. And in an almost painful way he turned his head to look at the girl smiling at him. At first he thought of yell at her or kaiten her till death but as he saw her big innocent eyes he came up with an ultimate plan…

"Thanks"

Ok maybe this wasn't so brilliant but what do you expect…to actually murder her? Not that he didn't want to do it, but it was his duty to take her to Konoha…alive. In other words, he couldn't kaiten her till death.

Shikamaru couldn't take it anymore and let his laughter came out. This was far too awkward. Neji saying thanks is like Naruto being serious or him dancing in the open in front of everyone.

Nami seemed satisfied with his answer and returned to her place smiling widely as Neji glared at Shikamaru his ever so famous death glare. Shikamaru remained unaffected and continued with his job of making fun of the Hyuuga.

He stood up ever so slowly and walked towards Shikamaru who was now smiling like crazy. The shadow of Neji covered the figure of the strategist as he loosed his bright smile and replaced it for a frown.

"Nara, I would like to battle with you"

"As you wish Hyuuga"

"Hn"

Both jounnins glared into each other's eyes and walked together into the darkness of the forest. Leaving behind a very confused Kai, a smiling Nami and a recovering Sakura. Later they will understand that was a mortal mistake.

They were so engrossed in their future spar that they didn't notice a pair of red Sharingan eyes observing them from the shadows.


A/N: Ok ppl…I know is short and also know that it passed a long time since I last updated and for that I am really sorry. I promise I will make my best for the next chapters.

Also I wanted to ask you if you prefer for me to write longer chapters and update not so soon or shorter and soon. Please let me know is important.

Well, with that said I must say goodbye

Mars7.