Chapter 12: Battles and Stupidity
The grass ninja ran into the room that the silver-haired ninja he had just killed came out of.
There were two people in the beds; a boy and a man. More ninja perhaps.
Better to kill them now then wait until they wake up.
He ran up to the boy's bed first and loomed over him, holding his kunai. Then he froze. In the lobby, everything was silent. Had everyone else been taken out that quickly? He hesitated before heading back to the door.
He fell forward as something heavy slammed into the back of his skull. He was knocked out before he hit the floor.
Behind him, Sasuke was holding a lead pole he had found beside his bed. He had no idea why it was there, but an enemy ninja was in the same room so he didn't care at this point.
He froze. He just realized that he wasn't at Tazuna's house. Where was he? He looked around. Gai was here too? Oh. Then he was at the hospital. That explained the hospital pajamas that smelled like detergent...
Why was he here? Oh yeah. He had fallen down the stairs.
Had something happened while he was asleep? He walked over the unconscious ninja and out into the hallway, still carrying the pole.
In the hallway, he turned to look at the lobby. There were nurses and doctors cleaning up spilled papers and pieces of glass from broken water jugs. Kakashi was helping out.
"Good afternoon! Did you have a nice nap," he said cheerfully, but Sasuke knew he was being sarcastic.
"What happened here?" Sasuke said, ignoring Kakashi's sarcastic question.
"Grass ninja," Kakashi replied before turning his attention to the unconscious ninja in the doorway to Gai's room. "Well, I really wanted to get him back, but good job. You've really improved."
Sasuke brightened on the inside, trying to remain cool on the outside. His inner self continued to cheer as Kakashi said something else. "Yes! I'm getting better than Naruto! Someday, I will get all the credit from Kakashi-Sensei and Naruto can go sulking in the corner. Then, I will avenge my clan. And..."
While Sasuke's inner self continued to ramble on, Kakashi was stating how Naruto's improvement tied up with Sasuke's.
When he was done, Kakashi said, "You don't mind that I say that, do you?"
"No. Not really," Sasuke replied.
"Good."
Back at the house, Sakura was in total panic.
"WHY! Why couldn't it have been myself that had fallen down the stairs and not my beloved, handsome, charming, way brighter than Naruto..." She was cut off by an annoyed and emotionally hurt Naruto.
"Ok, ok! We get it already!" Naruto said almost screaming it.
"Don't worry. I'm sure he'll be fine," Tenten said trying to comfort Sakura.
While all this went on, Naruto, Lee, Neji, and Inari went downstairs and into the kitchen.
"Do you think Gai-Sensei will be ok?" Lee asked for probably the thousandth time all day.
"For the last time, yes. He'll be fine, so stop worrying," Neji said slowly losing his patience with his teammate.
Naruto was snooping through the food pantry. He had barely eaten any supper because he was worried about Sasuke, but now that he was sure he was fine, he wanted food.
"Do you guys have any ramen, Inari?" Naruto asked.
"Yeah. My mom got some yesterday," Inari replied helping Naruto find it.
After he was done eating it (which didn't take him very long at all), he went back for more. When he found another box, he jumped up and down with delight.
"Miso ramen! I haven't had any for 10 days!" he said while continuing to jump up and down.
"We haven't been here for 10 days," Neji remarked rudely.
"Well I knew that, know-it-all," Naruto replied just as rudely while putting his hands on his hips, "but I was just saying that I haven't had it for 10 days, so ha!"
"You seem to fight with everyone."
The four turned around to see Tazuna. Naruto looked at his feet embarrassed.
Tazuna decided to change the subject. "Your sensei just called. He said that Sasuke woke up and he's fine."
Naruto's face brightened at this news. He was glad to hear that his friend would be fine.
"Wh-What about Gai-Sensei?" Lee asked, his eyes filling with tears.
Tazuna shrugged. "I don't know, he didn't say anything," he answered unconcerned.
The tears spilled over. "WHY! Why not me, Gai-Sensei!" Neji put a comforting hand on his teammate's back, but really he didn't care if Gai-Sensei survived or not.
Naruto sighed. "Looks like this will be the longest mission we've ever been on."
See, what did I tell you. Short and bad. Oh well. I'm no professional.