What are the kids up to?
Disclaimer: This belongs to the series, Naruto. None of these parts are mine and are only written for entertainment purposes.
The woman nodded to herself as she put down the report and picked up her cup of sake to soothe her nerves. Only she and whatever deity knew how much sake she needed to calm herself down. The office would have been in pieces a long time ago if it weren't for the special drink. Setting the cup down, savoring the taste of her drink in her mouth and swallowed.
'Naruto… Sasuke… Sakura…' she thought, looking at the report in front of her. 'Jiraiya, you fool. How on earth could you forget that Naruto still had healing to do! It's a good thing that nothing bad happened to halt the healing process.'
She steepled her fingers together, elbows on the desk and studied the photographs of Hokages that preceded her. 'I'll have to devise something so the three can train without hurting themselves in the process.'
She heard a knock on the door and with a permission of entry from her; the grey haired ninja entered the office. She sighed, pushing the thoughts of the three genins to the back of her mind as she dealt with the matters at hand.
"How did the mission go, Kakashi?" she asked.
"Very well, just some setbacks caused by few appearances of missing-nins from other villages. Other than that, the mission succeeded without a hitch."
"That's good. I will want a more detailed report from you on the missing-nins. Now, I'll have you to know what happened few days ago," Tsunade said, sitting back. "It's your students."
"Ah?" prompted Kakashi.
"Naruto left the hospital for awhile, thanks to that fool, Jiraiya. At one point, Sasuke and Naruto 'sparred.'"
Kakashi groaned, covering his eye with his right hand in exasperation and waited for her to continue.
"Sasuke seemed to have a momentary lapse in defending himself from Naruto's clones and crashed into five trees. So now he is recovering in the hospital, along with Naruto," she continued.
"Momentary lapse?" questioned Kakashi, putting his hand down.
"Sasuke wouldn't answer that question either. So maybe if you talked with him…" she said, trailing off.
"I see, I'll see what I can do," he said, nodding.
"Of course, for all we know, he could have had involuntary lapse where none of his functions would respond to his thoughts. However, I highly doubt it was that," she said.
Kakashi nodded in agreement.
She closed her eyes, her posture tensed and Kakashi realized something else was up.
"Kakashi, Jiraiya also left in the report that Sasuke has asked Naruto of a favor. It seems that he has asked it of Sakura as well."
"What's that?" queried Kakashi.
She studied Kakashi and looked down at the report and closed her eyes. "He wants help in avenging his clan."
Kakashi's right eye widened in surprise and asked, "And?"
"Both of them said yes."
"Interesting… it seems that something has changed his way of thinking," he said. She nodded in agreement, smiling. "Of which, is very good for the Konoha," Kakashi said with a smile.
"Now, according to this report, the boys were discharged about two hours ago, so I have no idea where any of the three are."
"I see," he paused, "I have some ideas where Sasuke is," he said.
"Good… Well, that is all, you may leave now, thank you for reporting in," Tsunade said.
Kakashi left the room, closing the door behind him.
Tsunade stared at the door and let out a sigh, closing her eyes. 'Of the three… I worry the most about you, Sakura. What exactly do you want out of the favor Sasuke asked of you?'
Kakashi looked back, and acknowledged the ANBU members guarding the door and walked among the hallways toward the exit.
'Sasuke… What are you thinking now?' he thought, leaving the building. 'What do you want now? Just use your teammates to avenge your clan?' he thought.
He sighed, looking up towards the sky, 'I wish I knew what you are thinking, Sasuke.'
nmnmnmnm
On the other side of the village, chuckles emitted from a man, watching through a hole in the wooden fence. He took notes on what the girls were doing and sketching them. Jiraiya frowned, remembering something and sighed. He sat up straight, putting the notepad away and crossed his arms in thought.
'Damnit, I can't stay focused on those women… This is really annoying,' he thought, growling to himself. 'I guess that's to be expected, since Naruto seem to have that uncanny tendency to butt into people's mind when they don't want them. Or at least, in my case.'
Jiraiya watched the girls soothed themselves with hot water and simply having a good time in the hot spring.
'Well, what should I do with Naruto and his teammates? I can't train them all at once, that's Kakashi's job. I suppose I'll have to take him as my apprentice. If I did that, I would be doing Naruto a disservice by taking him and leave the village for awhile and deprive him of his teammates,' he paused his thinking.
"Bah,"he muttered to himself, picking up a rock and crushed it into powder with his chakra.
'Though, I can take him out of village for awhile. But how often? Two weeks in village and two weeks outside. Or one month in village and one month outside,' he shook his head, 'no, that will not do. One week in village and two weeks outside of village.'
Satisfied, he smiled to himself. 'That will be the schedule. Starting now.'
Grinning, he took his notes out and began observing the women. He congratulated on himself for such brilliance in freeing himself of distractions without the help of sake.
nmnmnmnm
Sakura wandered among the buildings of Konoha, wondering if she should see the Hokage about something. She felt something was gripping her heart and it was starting to drive her nuts. Growling, her inner Sakura felt like shredding every single thing in sight into pieces from frustration. Sakura let out a sharp exhale, looking up and saw the Hokage's building.
'Well, here goes nothing,' she said to herself as she entered the building. 'I hope Sasuke and Naruto's attempt will succeed as well.'
She made her way to the office and requested entry. Tsunade called out to enter and she came in with a determined face.
"Hi Tsunade-sama."
nmnmnmnm
Sasuke knew that his sensei would be back today, but where could he find him, was the question. The past few days sitting in bed had bored him out of his mind. He realized that just simply training on their own without any guidance or supervision, they wouldn't get as strong.
'If I was Kakashi, where I would be? If he went to Tsunade to report on his mission and heard about me… ah right. He would be looking for me now,' he thought, jumping from roof to roof to the place where Kakashi thought Sasuke might be at.
True to his prediction, he found Kakashi arriving at the tree where Sasuke was before he went to Sound four.
"Kakashi-sensei!"
"Hm?" he looked up and spotted him. Sasuke landed before him with a neutral expression.
nmnmnmnm
Hours earlier, Naruto spotted a note next to his bedside just as he was leaving the hospital and read the letter.
Naruto,
Come find me. I have to talk to you about something.
Jiraiya
(NOT Pervert Hermit, please
Naruto chuckled at the last line and shoved the note into his pocket.
"Well, first on the to-do list after I'm discharged... Ichiraku!" he said to himself, punching the air.
Few hours later of eating and savoring the taste of ramen, he patted his stomach, "Ahh, that was good! Hm... there was something I had to do…"
He paid for his food and left, stuffing his hands into his pocket and felt the paper.
'Oh yeah… Pervert Hermit wanted to talk to me,' he thought, pausing his walk. 'Now where would he be? Of course, the hot spring,' he thought sarcastically as he ran to the place. 'I wonder if Sasuke is asking him the same thing. Maybe I should use this chance to ask too.'
"Pervert Hermit! Here I am!" said Naruto, arriving where Jiraiya was.
He huffed in annoyance when Naruto saw Pervert Hermit was distracted by the hot women. He held his hand in jutsu signs and yelled, "Sexy Technique!"
"Ohh Jiraiya-sama!" said Naruto, giving him blow kisses with his hand.
He looked behind himself and Jiraiya let out a heavy nose as he fell backwards when he saw the naked sexy figure.
Naruto returned to normal, puffing at him in annoyance as Jiraiya set himself back on the boulder.
"Right, to the business at hand," Jiraiya said, clearing his throat.
"I wanna ask you a question before whatever you want to talk to me about," interrupted Naruto.
Jiraiya huffed in annoyance and nodded.
nmnmnmnm
Throughout the village, the genins asked their respective adults the same question.
"Will you make me your apprentice?" asked the three, hoping the adult they asked will answer yes.
The adults, if far apart, thought the same thing as they stared at the genin in front of them and smiled.
"Yes, I will take you on as my apprentice," the three adults replied with a smile.
With each three of the genins, they all grinned at the response.
'Why do I feel as though this same thing happened to Sasuke and Sakura just now?' wondered Nartuo as he scratched his head and shrugged.
