Chapter 11: Scavenger Hunt (part 2).
Parings: Naru/Sasu...duh.
Rating: K-T (first) M-NC-17 (later)
Disclaimer: I do not own the sheer genius "Naruto"; Shippuden of other. The honours go to Masashi Kishimoto and his genius brain that created this masterpiece.
Summary: Remember the summer camp you went to; that quaint place out in the woods, by a lake, sitting around a campfire telling ghost stories and eating s'mores? Well this summer school, sure as hell, isn't that. Three months, Sasuke, teenage delinquents, illegal alcohol, prescription drugs, annoying shrinks, escape plans, a Shitzu from hell, and new relationships; welcome to camp. NaruSasuNaru.
A/N: WARNING: I'm bending facts here.
"A what?" Sasuke asked incredulously walking to the auditorium step by step with Naruto.
The blond shrugged, "That's what Iruka-sensei said, they're making everyone do a scavenger hunt in the forest near the obstacle course."
"Yes," Sasuke snorted, "But why?"
"Beats me." Naruto said. "I can't think why."
Thinking.
The one thought he was trying to ignore rose again; the one about Naruto and his...boyfriend. He hadn't pried but was still mentally reeling; Naruto was...gay...Bi...what?
Squashing the thought back to dust they entered the large room; the cliques of people were chatting among themselves. Sasuke passed the one with Neji without even a glance to sit on the last seat on the stands.
Sasuke was just about to open his mouth when Gai entered; his trusty bull-horn under his arm; beside him were three adults; Ibiki, Baki and a woman with a hyena grin Sasuke had learned was named Anko.
"Students," Gai said, "Today is a challenge for your youthful minds and bodies! A scavenger hunt is prepared for you to solve. Each team is going to be issued clues to follow and the top three teams who solve the riddles and find the item in question will be awarded!"
"With what?" Sasuke heard murmured behind him. He didn't even have to turn to know it was Suigetsu who was partnered with Renjii.
"The winners will receive a trip to the nearby town under supervision of Hatake-sensei." Gai supplied teeth glinting like crazy. "You will have seven hours to complete this challenge. The hunt starts in one hour; please receive your questions."
That was one hour and ten minutes ago; after being fitted with the ankle bands and entered the forest Sasuke was no closer to solving the clues no matter how much time he read them.
He glanced at the paper again; Clue 1: The words writ with an iron pen; the soul of a man for the sake or men.
The word 'confusing' didn't evenexpress it.
Sasuke's eyes narrowed, "The words writ with an iron pen...what the hell?"
"Yeah." Naruto said facing the sun, "Who writes anything with a pen these days, much less and iron one."
Sasuke sat down on the protruding stone beside the blond, "...the soul of a man for the sake of men."
"Sounds like a martyr to me." the blond suggested. "Like Malcom X or Ghandi or something."
"Yes." Sasuke agreed, "...but this is Japan...who was a Japanese Martyr?"
Consumed in thought Sasuke brought his leg up to his chest, eyes slipped to half-mast, brain rummaging through every history lesson he knew of.
Bupkiss. Nada. Nothing...there was no Japanese martyr he could thing off.
He turned to Naruto who was crouching down beside a plant and plucking something from it; small reddish-black berries the size of baby tomatoes. Naruto raised one to his face just as Sasuke dove off the stone and tackled him to the ground screaming "NO!"
"What is the problem?" Naruto struggled under the Uchiha's weight which was firmly planted on his stomach, "They're just berries."
"Those are not berries," Sasuke grated through gritted teeth; "Those are Belladonna ...poison..." he leaned in his nose almost touching Naruto, "...Tell me do you want tachycardia, anaphylactic shock, hallucinations, delirium and convulsions...because if you do; please go ahead and eat them."
Blue eyes were getting wider with each word coming out Sasuke's mouth. "No. On second thought I think I'll pass."
He grunted, "Good choice." And pushed off to sit harshly down on the cracked patch of soil.
Naruto sat up and brushed the dirt of his fingers, "There more to it." he said handing Sasuke the note.
"Clue 2: The Emperor's' weapon; sanctified. Well that's astoundingly unhelpful." He grunted.
Then;
"Clue 3: Man to Earth; Earth to Man." He took a second to think; it was a passage from the Christian bible if he wasn't mistaken; that one was the simplest of the three; it was referring to either a clay statue of a man or a grave.
His head met the mossy stone side as he closed his eyes again; "Do you have any idea what they might be talking about?"
"No." Naruto said scuffing his boots against the tough soil, "Unless they are talking about some dead Japanese Pharaoh I don't know about."
Unbidden Sasuke chuckled, "I really don't think so; but good effort Naruto."
Blond head and wide blue eyes whipped around to meet his.
"What?" Sasuke asked.
"That's the first time you said my name." Naruto answered, "It's always been 'Baka', 'usurotankachi' or 'Dobe' when you're in slightly good mood."
"Well," Sasuke said pushing off the ground and headed toward the bubbling sound of a nearby spring, "Don't get used to it."
*****Teacher's Lounge, ADMIN*****
"I wonder if he has figured it out yet." Kakashi murmured absently.
"If you're banking on his human nature to guide him, think again." Ibiki Morino snorted. "That kid has assassinated his human half a long time ago."
"Oh come on Morino," Iruka butted in, "Sasuke isn't that bad."
The coffee Ibiki was about to drink made a perfect arch to splatter against the opposite wall; "What the hell have you been smoking Umino... he's worse."
"How?" The soft voice of Kurenai joined the discussion while sipping her tea.
"Yeah!" Anko joined her brash voice grating on every man's nerves within her ten foot radius, "How?"
"One rotation with me; a kid named Jokai fell and broke three fingers in his left hand." Ibiki growled, "Your precious Sasuke took one look at the screaming kid and said, "Those fingers are going to be useless; just amputate them," and walked off."
"That doesn't mea-"
"AND," Morino cut in, "He even offered to do it with a piece of rope and a field knife."
"His mother was a doctor," a new voice, Tsunade's, said her flask of spiced rum in hand, "It doesn't surprise me."
"Still," Ibiki said, "He's heartless."
"You're talking like you had a heart ten years ago, Morino." Gai said announcing his presence, "I remember those missions in Iraq wher-"
"OKAY!" Ibiki said cutting off whatever damning information Gai was going to deluge. "He's smart, so-fucking-what?"
"It means," Gai said smiling pleasantly, "That this undertaking of mine has a mission after all."
"Word writ with an iron pen." Sasuke murmured as he stopped pacing up and down only to rest on a fir tree, "Iron...iron...the last time someone used an iron pen was in the age of enlightenment, like a metal quill."
Naruto's eyes narrowed, "Isn't that like in, what-his-name...Shakespeare of something, time?"
"Yes," Sasuke agreed absently, "And the British Revolution, the American one, the constitution of-"
And then it slapped; HARD!
He shot off the tree he was leaning on, eyes brightly manic with the revelation. "It's not a literal iron pen...it's what was written that was iron...guidelines...commandments."
"As in?"
"The second clue is what again?" he asked quickly.
"The Emperor's weapon; sanctified." Naruto relayed instantly.
"Emperors make motions... decrees... laws." Sasuke said glancing up at the blond, "We're looking for a law."
"Library?" Naruto suggested.
"Yes." Sasuke said spinning around but was stopped by Naruto's hand and his question. "Wait. Why would they dump us in a forest if the answer is in a library?"
Good damn point.
"...and what about the 'sanctified' part?" Naruto finished.
Sasuke stopped dead. He had overlooked that part. "Sanctified." He murmured. "Sanctified...sacred... meaning to humans...which emperor made a sanctified humanitarian law." He said, his mind running over the list of emperors from the Edo period to the Meijii Era. Not a damn one.
"Damn." he cursed. "No Japanese Emperor did anything like that."
Naruto was watching the sky with a frown on his face, "What if it isn't a Japanese one...Like Buddha or somebody?"
"Sanctified...foreign... humanitarian..." he thought and then it slammed into him like a bullet train, "Confucius!"
"The what now?"
"Confucius, Confucianism...the code of moral, humanitarian ethics the Chinese and Japanese Emperors led by." He said, his mind mentally brining up a map of the compounds grounds. "We need to find a shrine."
"There is an old one," Naruto's eyes narrowed, "...on the way side of the Obstacle course, I think Shikamaru said it was a Shinto temple."
"We need to find it, NOW!"
*****Teacher's Lounge, ADMIN*****
"Let's bet." Anko suggested, "Who's gonna win."
"That's easy," Kurenai said glibly, "Shikamaru Nara."
Kakashi kept silent. Sure Shikamaru was brilliant like hell, he hacked into an international government's satellite twice, and there was no question that he had the intelligence to figure it out but what he didn't have was the persistent obsessive drive to win that Sasuke had.
And that was the decimal that separated them.
"Gaara." Someone put in.
Another good choice but not on point.
"I agree with Kurenai...Shikamaru." somebody else said
Someone grabbed a bag, and pieces of paper. The bets were written and placed in the bag with the amount betted.
Tsunade glanced at Kakashi, "Kakashi, you haven't put in your bet yet."
Sighing he scrawled Sasuke's name on the slip of paper and with a slight smile dropped it in, "That's because you are all going to lose. Sasuke is going to win; no questions about it."
Silence. Then a snort; "With that bubble head blond, get real."
Oh those poor senseless stupid idiots.
"I agree with Kakashi." Iruka ventured in, "Sasuke and Naruto are going to win."
"In a million years, maybe."
Fording a river wasn't as easy as it looked.
Sasuke had slipped and been dunked into the river twice already and the he was about to slip a third time before Naruto grabbed him and stabilized him.
"Open your stance." He said. "Allow the water to pass through."
Sasuke hummed but obeyed. The far side bank was in his vision field when he stopped.
"What?" the blond asked.
"Nothing." He said shoving down the shiver that was centralized under Naruto's bracing hand and continued to move. They reached the bank and Sasuke flopped on the muddy bank, staring up at the darkening sky. He turned to Naruto who was currently occupied with scanning the terrain. Tall tan body facing the sinking sun, as waves of burnt orange and rose pink light washed over him.
Sasuke felt that uncomfortable tightening in his lower stomach again. "What are you looking at?"
"The sky...there's a storm brewing." He replied, "If we're gonna get this thing we have to get it fast."
He pushed up from the ground and grunted, "Let's go."
They took off at run.
(*)(*)(*)
Antiseptic.
Alcohol.
Battery acid.
Those were the chemicals he needed to remove the disgusting gunk accumulated on his body in the last fifteen minutes. And god, why in hell was there a swamp in the middle of the forest?
Wiping off the last glob of mud from his arm, Sasuke cursed mentally.
"We're here." Naruto said dropping sleek panther like off the tree limb he had just been standing on to survey the surroundings. "The shrine is about half a klick North West."
"A what?" he groused combing the mud out of his matted hair.
"A klick...kilometre." he explained.
Sasuke heaved himself up from the ground and grunted, walking off muttering under his breath.
*****Teacher's Lounge, ADMIN*****
"Five hours."
Iruka laid a gentle hand on Kakashi's shoulder, "They're going to figure it out."
Kakashi's lips twitched, Iruka shot him a mixed look, and "...you've become attached to him, haven't you?"
It was so obvious he didn't have to answer.
"Fucking finally." Sasuke swore swatting a limb out of his face.
The shrine was old; red oak wood was waxing black at some places. He took a moment to look at it entirely; the arched Torii Gate, the graceful structure of the stone marker, the metal bowl, the tin incense holders, the shingled roof; perfect specimen of history.
He walked silently around the shrine to stop; a section of the dirt was freshly dug up and topped with loose basalt stones.
Jackpot.
Kneeling down the shifted the rocks; digging into the dirt; a foot down he uncovered a sealed black box. He smirked while opening it; nestled in the box was sable ink brush, a bottle of ink and a scroll. The Emperors weapons.
What happened next took less than five seconds.
A sleek black snake, asp like, rose up from his shifted nest, reared back and struck Sasuke's hand, sharp fangs sinking into pale flesh and in under a nanosecond pumped poisonous venom into his bloodstream.
The pain was insane. Sasuke screamed so loud it echoed along the hilltops; scaring a flock or blackbirds into the air.
Dimly he recognized Naruto falling beside him as he clutched the hand to his chest.
"Sasuke!" Naruto shouted grabbing at his hand, "Let me see it."
Tears were in his eyes from the pain but he shied away from Naruto. "N...No.." he sobbed, "I c-can't...leav' it!"
"That is a black mamba, Sasuke, I know you have proximity issues but this is NOT the time." Naruto said grabbing the hand; the bite site was turning black-blue.
"Brace yourself." were the only words that Naruto said.
Through spasms of pain Sasuke watched as Naruto slipped a Swiss army knife out of his pocket and with a swift flick the knife cut two small knicks into the holes in Sasuke's palm and sealed his peach lips over the wound, sucking the venom out.
The Uchiha sat dumbfounded as he watched Naruto, with a grim expression, spit out the venom time after time again. Thumbs pressed firmly into his palm to force the rest of the venom and infected blood out; after three drops nothing else came.
Naruto then reached down to his shirt and ripped a section off the hem and deftly bound the hand with the cloth. Sasuke was completely speechless.
Something shifted in him that moment.
"We need to hurry back," Naruto declared, "You're going to need antibiotics."
He nodded dumbly, still speechless.
Naruto leaned down and grabbed the box in one hand and Sasuke in the other.
Six teams had already returned with nothing.
Six... twelve people.
The quad was brimming with latent energy. Who was going to win?
Another team struggled in empty handed.
Kakashi tensed; "Sasuke, where the hell are you?"
Running.
His feet were pounding the ground in a mindless desire to win. His head was getting fuzzier and lighter with each step but he had to win.
He HAD to. Losing was not an option.
Adrenaline was coursing through his veins; he couldn't stop, he couldn't fail, not now, not ever. The sky was blackening and dim growls of growing thunder assaulted his ears. Naruto was right; it was going to rain.
Crossing the river was even trickier that before; the fresh water flowing from upriver was swelling the banks; the torrent was quicker but under his desire to win everything seemed infinitesimal to him. Sasuke pushed harder with every second. His eyes were hazing over; a side-effect of the venom but he still pushed.
The opposite bank was reached; he scrambled out of the water; pushed up and almost fell. His ears were ringing.
"Blood pressure dangerously low." He recognized leaning on the closest tree and panting hard.
An arm wrapped around his middle and his left hand was slung across wide shoulders. "Let's go."
Even though he was dizzy he glanced up and saw the gates of the camp. A surge of strength ran through him as he straightened up slightly.
His balance was off; shot to hell, his motor sense completely demolished.
"Almost there." Dimly Sasuke admired Naruto's strength. He hadn't let go of his body since he had braced him in the forest.
"Stop." Sasuke ordered.
Blue eyes narrowed. "No."
"Yes!" Sasuke snarled pushing away from him, "Let me go!"
Naruto acquiesced, "Your pride is going to kill you someday."
Doubled over he panted, "I'm an Uchiha...it means 'pride'."
The gates were reached, through hazy vision Sasuke marched, spine straight, over to Gai and the assembled faculty. Naruto beside him; step by step.
Simultaneously, with a hand on each end of the case handed the box to a Gai and an insanely smirking Kakashi.
"Well done." Gai smiled.
Satisfied Sasuke breathed deeply and collapsed.
-I'm smirking my face off right now-
Black Prodigy
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