Chapter 20: Life Goes On
"Well it looks like the only team we need to wait for is Shino's team," Tsunade informed the ninja grouped into her office. The other three teams—with the exception of Kina, who was back in Suna—reported their mission success to the Hokage and now waited for her next orders.
Gaara and Kankuro bowed to the blonde woman.
"Thank you for helping us when we needed it," Gaara said. "My family owes you all a great debt. But we must get back to Suna. Kinabuhi will be waiting and we must check on the status of Uchiha Itachi."
"You don't mind keeping him in Suna?" Sasuke asked.
Kankuro turned to the raven-haired man and shook his head. "Suna is the best prison for him," he stated. "Not only do we have the technology to keep him in a coma, we have Kina. She can slip through the bastard's mind and learn all of his secrets."
"You won't demand that he be killed, right, Sasuke?" Tsunade wondered. "I understand that you've left your thirst for vengeance behind."
"I have. I'm just worried about what could happen if Itachi regained consciousness," he clarified. He struggled to keep the fear he felt off of his face. After all, Suna had been his home for the past six years and Gaara's family was now his own. He didn't know if he could survive again if he lost them to Itachi.
"Don't worry," Gaara said. "We'll make sure that that doesn't happen." The Konoha shinobi were surprised when the Kazekage clapped Sasuke on the shoulder and embraced him. "Take care of yourself, Sasuke."
Sasuke returned the hug and pulled back. "Take care of yourself, Gaara," he replied. "Tell Kina that I'll be by soon to visit."
Gaara nodded and went on to hug Naruto and Sakura goodbye. He further surprised the group when he kissed the pink-haired kunoichi on the cheek and whispered something into her ear. Sakura smiled and laughed softly. She nodded her head and kissed Gaara's cheek.
"When Jocelyn returns here, tell her that she can rest for one week. Then, if someone can, please, escort her to Suna," Gaara requested. "After all, she is Kina's cousin and her rightful place is in Suna."
The two Suna nin were almost out the door when Neji asked, "And what about Temeki? She's been missing for more than a month and she clearly has a grudge against her foster sister."
"Yawa Temeki is no more," Gaara answered, his emotionless mask back in place.
"She was with Itachi and Kisame when we raided their hideout," Sasuke added. "Jocelyn took care of her."
Neji and the other Konoha ninja were talented enough to know when someone was lying—or at the very least, hiding something. However, Sasuke and Gaara were talented enough ninja to make any lie seem like the truth. As it was, after a harsh look from Tsunade, the others simply took the explanation given to them and left it at that.
"Well," Naruto said after the Suna nin left. "I'm tired, so I'm just gonna go home."
"Us too," Sakura said, grabbing onto Sasuke's arm. "We'll fill out a formal mission report tomorrow, okay Tsunade-sama?"
"Same here," Kakashi added lazily. He sidled a glance at his two male students and smirked. "Suddenly I'm in the mood for a lobster dinner."
Any reply the Hokage might have made was unheard by the members of Team 7 since the four shinobi disappeared in a burst of cloud smoke and cherry blossoms. She turned to look at Neji and Shikamaru, the only remaining ninjas in the room, and frowned.
"They didn't explain their wounds," she commented on the strange marks on Naruto and Sasuke's bodies.
"I assume they were received during the mission," Neji answered, honestly not caring about how they were wounded.
Shikamaru just yawned and slanted a look at Tsunade. "It's too troublesome to wonder about it now," he said. "I'm heading home, too. Temari will want a mission report."
"What about the mission report you owe me?" the Godaime demanded.
The lazy genius looked out the window and replied, "I have to write it out. Temari will demand to know what happened. It will be less troublesome if I write the report at home and have her read over my shoulder. I don't want to go over it twice."
"And I must return to the Hyuuga Compound," Neji said, bowing. "Tenten will have returned from the doctor by now. She'll worry over my absence."
Tsunade threw up her hands in exasperation and accepted the fact that she wouldn't receive any paperwork for this particular mission for a few days.
"Go," she shooed the men out of her office. "But make sure that I get those reports by noon tomorrow."
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Sasuke knew that he and Sakura were both stressed out by the events of the past few days. Together they stumbled through her apartment and crashed onto her bed in a tangle of limbs. The late summer heat pressed down on them and Sasuke impatiently tore off his clothes. When he was down to his boxer shorts, he noticed that Sakura took his cue and was clad only in her bindings and underwear.
Sakura saw the light in Sasuke's onyx eyes and placed her hand on his chest.
"No," she said. "I'm tired; you're tired. And there's no way in hell I'm fooling around with a guy with red spots all over his body."
Sasuke accepted this and placed his red spotted arms around her. He nuzzled the side of her neck and sighed. Sakura smiled and gently ran her hands down his arms, healing the worst of the bruises that the lobsters left on his skin. He smiled as he felt the cooling touch of his mate and kissed her shoulder.
"The Summer Festival starts in three days," Sasuke commented.
"And?" Sakura yawned and stretched her arm above her head. A moment later, the room became shadowed as she pulled on the cord that brought her shades down and blocked out the late afternoon sunlight.
"And I was wondering if you would be my date for the Welcoming Dinner," Sasuke clarified as the pink-haired woman snuggled into him.
"Okay."
"Great."
"I need a new dress."
"I need a new wardrobe."
"Naruto will help us."
"Sure, he will."
"Hinata, too."
"Go to sleep now."
"I am asleep."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
"So go to sleep."
"You're the one who keeps talking."
"Do I have to put a pillow over your head?"
"Why can't you let me have the last word?"
"Why can't you let me have the last word?"
"Because."
"That's not an answer."
"Then make me shut up."
"You said no fooling around."
"You're the genius," Sakura snapped, her eyes closed and a smile on her face. "Come up with a solution that doesn't involve us fooling around."
Sasuke was silent for a while and Sakura thought that she finally got the last word in their stupid little conversation, but she was disappointed when the man next to her spoke.
"Two years after I was transformed into Temeki, Shino and I bumped into each other in Bear Country. We made the very bad mistake of getting extremely drunk and had a wild one-night stand together," he admitted ruefully.
"What do you mean?"
"What I mean, Sakura-chan, is that we both lost our virginities to Aburame Shino."
"…"
"Sakura?"
"…"
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"Why does Godaime-sama do this to us?" Kotetsu muttered to his partner as they trudged along the path to the Tower.
"Because we're her secretaries," Izumo said, he almost dropped the stack of papers he held when he heard a loud bark shatter the quiet morning. He looked around the mass he held and saw that Jocelyn followed close behind the white dog.
"What's that?" Kotetsu asked. He lowered his own stack and looked over the top of the papers. He saw the Suna kunoichi running as fast as she could, a look of terror on her face. Akamaru ran past the confused men and slid as he turned a corner. Jocelyn saw them and screamed.
"RUN YOU FOOLS!" she yelled as she ran past. "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"
They looked back at the direction the woman came from and saw Inuzuka Kiba running for them as well.
"WHY ARE YOU STANDING THERE LIKE IDIOTS!" he shrieked. "RUN AND DON'T TOUCH THE NOSE! YA HEAR ME? THE NOSE—DON'T TOUCH IT!" And with that cryptic message, the Inuzuka Heir rounded the same corner his dog and Jocelyn did.
Kotetsu turned to Izumo and raised his eyebrows. The other man shrugged and noticed Aburame Shino calmly jogging over the rise. When the jounin reached them, Izumo asked the question they both needed answered.
"What's chasing you?"
Shino pointed behind him calmly and said, "That."
Kotetsu's jaw dropped as a huge insect flew above the trees that lined the path and bore down on them. The buzz from its wings sent some of the papers flying and nearly deafened them.
"WHY AREN'T YOU RUNNING?" Kotetsu asked the bug-user, shouting to be heard over the noise.
"BECAUSE I'M NOT THE ONE WHO PISSED IT OFF!" Shino replied.
The insect flew over the trio and headed in the direction that Kiba went in. A few minutes later, the shouts of a man, a woman, and the yips of a large dog echoed throughout the village of Konoha.
A/N:
I am sssssssoooooo sorry about not updating. Finals suck, life sucks, the government sucks. (BTW if the government puts a lien on your house, then it's a bad thing.)
Plus, the document manager thing wouldn't accept my doc file for the longest time...so, poo...
So many things sucked in my life for most of June that it wasn't even funny. But I'm back now!
I hope this chapter doesn't suck too badly though. I'm out of practice.