Someone was pounding on the door. The sun hadn't even risen and someone was pounding on his door. Uzumaki Naruto growled before rolling over and burrowing his head under his pillow. Sleep was gooood, sleep was important. He'd need sleep to be ready to beat the living shit out of Sasuke when they sparred in the morning. Whatever it was could wait till after that. After that and ramen.
Damnit. Now he was hungry.
The door-pounding stopped and with a little content smile, Naruto began to drift happily back to sleep. Then the Naruto-pounding started. With a yelp, Naruto covered his head and tried to roll away only to smash his nose into the wall.
"Get up!" Sakura shouted. But it wasn't the usual Sakura 'I'm-so-annoyed-with-you-right-now' shout. It was the 'I'm-trying-not-to-be-scared' Sakura shout and there were few things in the world that could wake Naruto up faster than that. He sat up, blue eyes clear and focused.
"What happened?"
She moved away from his bedside immediately so that he could scramble out of it. He kept glancing at her as he snagged his weapon pouches up off of the floor then shrugged on his favorite orange and black jacket. His black pajama pants would have to do for now.
Sakura was already fully dressed. She had her feet spread shoulder width apart and her fists resting on her hips, confident and completely ready to act despite the deep frown lines and pinched look to her eyes. This was not good.
"Sasuke?" he asked quietly. It's been six months since they'd dragged him more or less willingly home. He, Sakura and Kakashi-sensei. Cause they were Team 7, and only the lowliest of the low abandons a teammate. Even if said teammate might prefer to be abandoned. Even if said teammate might just run off again, chasing snake-bastards, fratricidal brothers and just generally being an idiot.
Sakura just nodded mutely.
Naruto cursed. He should have known. Tsunade-ba-chan had ordered Sasuke under house arrest for six months after his return, said house being Kakashi's apartment. That had ended barely a week ago. Naruto had offered to let Sasuke move in with him, and after that had been shot down Sakura had offered to help him find a nice apartment, but no, Sasuke-teme wanted to move back into his creepy haunted house. Sakura had told him he ought to be understanding of Sasuke's choice. Kakashi just pretended to ignore everything. Sasuke did ignore everything. So Naruto just made sure his loud cheerful self was over there every day to bug the heck out of the ice-bastard.
Looks like it didn't do any good, however. Sasuke-teme still left. Ran off again chasing some stupid idea on how to become powerful and strong all on his own and not staying in Konoha to become powerful and strong with him and Sakura the way he should.
"Alright," he said as he pulled on his shoes. "Well, we'll just have to go find his dumb-ass again, and then we'll just drag his dumb-ass back home again. But this time I get to tie him up and make him stay. No more of this living alone in that creepy house with only a bunch of ghosts for company. This time I ain't letting him outta my sight until his bastard-ass gets it through his thick skull that there ain't nothing out there worth doing this."
He could have kept going about the bastardish nature of their fellow teammate and how much more of a dumb-ass Sasuke was, especially with the way Sakura was staring at him wide-eyed, but then Sakura finally interrupted him. "He didn't leave, Naruto."
"Huh?" he replied rather ineloquently, frozen with one foot out the door.
"He's in the hospital." Sakura's voice waved only slightly as she said it. Barely noticeable, really.
"Huh?"
She made a little half growling, half huffing sound that was pure Sakura. "Oh, just hurry up and come on, I'll explain it as we move." And then she was brushing by him and he had to scramble to catch up.
"Hospital?" he repeated back as they jumped from his building to the one next to it. "What the hell?"
"ANBU brought him in. Missing-nin managed to get all the way to the Uchiha compound before anyone noticed. One guess who."
Naruto's footing slipped. Itachi? In Konoha? One hand crept down to rest over his stomach and the seal there. But Itachi certainly hadn't been here looking for him and the Kyuubi. "Damnit!" Naruto hissed. It would have been better if he had. Yeah, he probably wouldn't have been able to defend himself against somebody like Itachi, but at least then maybe the bastard would have left Sasuke alone. "Damnit!"
"I know," Sakura replied. "But he's not dead. He's not dead."
Naruto scowled but nodded. "Right. Not dead."