To Ease the Pain Chapter 7: Break, a naruto fanfic

I was shoved into the office, my hands bound behind my back by chakra. I stumbled around for a minute before my feet found their placing and I fell back into one of the Hokage's seats, my crossed wrists pressing into my spine.

"Damn, they caught you too." Mai's voice brought my attention to where she sat to my left. My view turned towards Mai; her fists, bound together by the same sort of chakra, were placed on her lap. Sighing, I glanced about the room, my eyes catching Team 7 standing to one side: Naruto was doing his own stupid little happy dance singing "We got a hard mission! We got a hard mission!" before Sakura smacked him over the head. The Hokage seated behind his desk, and his advisors buzzing around him like a hoard of chattering squirrels. Yes, I mean squirrels. I'm sure if one of us had dropped some acorns in front f the desk, the strange and gangly group of men would be over the desk in no time, scrambling for the food.

Suddenly, Hiro and Rika swept into the room, Hiro in the seat to my right and Rika just behind him. His hands, too, were bound. The Hokage's eyes travelled over each of us genin before making eye contact with Rika and Kakashi.

"As I was saying before we had a disruption," meaning when the three of us tried to escape, "All of you have complained that your missions are too easy. In fact, all of the teams have complained of this. But you are still just genin and are not yet mature enough to handle higher missions on your own." The Hokage paused as he breathed out a puff of gray smoke. "So, as I have said, we will be sending you on dual team missions. Your mission has asked for two of our best teams of genin seeing as your clients will already have a few of their own guards with them—" Sudden giggles bubbled up in my throat and escaped my mouth as I threw my head back against the seat. All three of us hand cuff bound genin burst out in laughter at the Hokage's statement. It wasn't long before my sides began to feel the lack of oxygen and I was gasping for air, hungrily breathing in the much needed oxygen.

"What's so funny?" Sakura's voice was but a mere pest and I didn't really have the breath to answer. We all slowly began to calm down; Mai had fallen almost completely out of her chair and onto the wood floor.

"What's so funny? You don't see it? Between the statements that you all are considered a good team and that we would work well together is hilarious!"

"Hey, are you saying that you're better than us!" Naruto was fuming as both Sakura and Sasuke glared at us.

"No, she's saying that there is no way in hell you all are any good together." I tried to stifle back more laughter which only half worked. The Hokage was now pressing a finger to his temple as another puff of smoke curled to the ceiling. The squirrel advisors began chattering even louder, to the Hokage and between themselves. Before one more insult could be hurled from either party, The Hokage cleared his throat, halting all shouting and squirrel babble.

"I assumed it would be easier for your teams to work better together. Seeing as Rika and Kakashi are siblings, they will also work better together." All of us held our peace, processing his statement. My own vision travelled between the two jonin; one had a slight smile as she watched in amusement at the now again frantic advisors, the other's nose shoved deep into a small orange book.

"If I may, Lord Hokage, you couldn't send my siblings and I on a mission together if you locked us together with handcuffs." The Hokage stared unbelievingly at Mai, another puff of smoke leaving his lips and curling up to the ceiling.

"Mai, I have seen you and Itaru; the two of you work together very well." Mai was left without a reply. "And, if I am correct, both Rika and Kakashi have agreed to be supervisors of this mission." Each jounin gave a slight nod to affirm their decision, much to the dismay of the rest of the genin. A silence then filled the office, buzzing and pressing in on my ears. Everyone held their tongues; I think it was mainly because we were all thinking of ways to voice our thoughts without disrespecting the Hokage. I kept my own lips shut tightly, fearing if they opened, I would regret what came out.

"What if we turn down the mission?" Hiro's question seemed candid enough, but we all knew the answer before the Hokage could speak. The elderly shinobi tilted the front corner of his hat down as if to hide his pensive face from the rest of the room.

"You have no choice; you all wanted harder missions and now you are getting one. You will depart to meet the clients immediately. Be warned, these clients are royalty and there will be attacks sent to try and kill them, meaning they will try to kill you. But again, some of their guards will be with them to aid you. Now, you have half an hour to collect any of your things you will need for this mission." His voice was close to monotone, his face still hidden by the shadow cast from his hat. I sat forward; forgetting of consequences and attempting to voice myself but the Hokage cut me off with one curt finalization. "Dismissed."

With that, we all were ushered out of the office, my hands still bound behind my back. For minutes outside the Hokage's office, I struggled against the surprisingly strong fetters as my fingers attempted to latch around the chains that were indefinable and impossible to grasp. After Rika finally dissipated the chakra, I sent her one last glower and left the building, entering out into the mid morning sunlight in a huff. Shielding my eyes from the sun, I began towards home, Mai just to my left.

It wasn't long before we arrived at the Saito household. A crash echoed from the upstairs floor as Mai slammed the door shut behind her. Although some of the Saito siblings were already living in their own homes, almost all of them spent much of their time in the original. A whirlwind of sisters rushed by me, their proximity so close, I had to step back to stay out of the war path. The closest thing to what I was seeing before me was, at the least, a lethal battle ground in the middle of a hurricane. Mai had disappeared into the house, searching for her things as her siblings bustled around her. The noise was starting to upturn my tranquility, a crash and screech echoing through the home every couple seconds. Most of the Saitos who passed me either completely ignored my presence or were too busy to notice me at all. Backing up, I avoided hitting the senbon protruding from the wall as I leaned against the wood paneling.

Mai reappeared from the center of a large gaggle of siblings heading to a dinner. The thing is, this was a normal night. All of the siblings, seven of them sisters, and only one of them being a brother, were always crazy and wound up over something. "Come on, Kyoko." Mai's voice was nothing higher than a growl, her fists balled at her side. Her bag was thrown over her shoulder; some clothes were peaking out of the top, showing how much she had rushed. More crashes erupted behind us as Mai and I headed in the direction of my house. Mai's mother, a brunette kunoichi, rushed out of the house behind us, calling after Mai.

"Mai, aren't you going to say goodbye to your family?" Even though that had been a question, both of us knew that Mai really didn't have any choice in the matter; Mai was caught in the snare and there was only one way of getting out. "You're going to be gone for so long, dear." Mai rushed forward, hugging her mother quickly.

"Say goodbye to everyone for me, I'm in a hurry, Ma." Mai's only brother, and definitely her closest sibling, came up behind his mother.

"You gonna leave before you even say goodbye, Imouto?" Mai rolled her eyes, huffing out an angered sigh. She quickly spun around, hugging him quickly before we returned to the road towards my house.

"Bye Aniki!"

"Have a good mission Mai. You too, Kyoko." Itaru and Mai's mother were swiftly becoming small dots as we distanced ourselves further from them, approaching my house.

The sounds of Konoha were beginning to dull as Mai and I came closer to the gates, most of the other mission's shinobi waiting. My canvas mission bag was thrown together haphazardly, weapons and bandage tape mixed in with the clothes alike.

"You have got to be kidding me…"

My—luckily former—classmates were all standing around the gates: chatting, waiting, sleeping, or doing whatever the hell they normally did as they all awaited the rest of the pack. Some of them looked up, some of them didn't, some looked completely pissed.

Hiro emigrated to join us, his isolation from the other genin not as obvious as ours was now.

"Can you not show up on time? We were supposed to leave an hour ago." Mai, who had thrown her bag down and sat on the roots of a tree, sent the dark haired shinobi a glare.

"So now that we're here, why aren't we leaving?" Mai ripped the senbon from her hair before twiddling it impatiently between her fingers. I tossed my bag on the ground before leaning against the rough bark of the tree to Mai's left.

"I thought this was just going to be us and the team of losers over there. What are the other teams doing?" I directed my question at Hiro with a lazy glance in his direction.

"Apparently we're all travelling together until those two teams will go on a different path to reach their clients."

"Do we even know who are clients are yet?"

"Nope." Minutes passed in silence between us as the sounds of the other genin and few jounin echoed in the clearing against our silence. As time passed in a lethargic pace, my eyelids began to droop in pure and untainted boredom as the weight I placed against the tree increased. Then a lump of wiggling fur jumped me. The dog pushed heavily into my lap, snapping my eyes open as I fell back so the muddy paws and dirt caked fur of the soaked down was on top of me, wiggling and rubbing as much dirt on me as possible. The dog hopped back on the ground, barking as if he was laughing at me, and ran back to his sniggering master.

"Hey Inuzuka-mutt! Control your damn dog!" Kiba was snickering under his breath as Akamaru took up his usual spot, perched on the Inuzuka's head since all the mud had now been passed to me instead of to Kiba's hair.

"Calm down! It's just a bit of mud; get over it and stop being such a spaz." Picking up a fistful of said mud, I hurled the projectile so it hit the dog shinobi square in the face. Wiping the dirt off his face viciously, the amusement on Kiba's face had now been replaced with irritation. I stood up off the ground, patting my hands over the mud to try and wipe it off. Kiba now stood before me, both him and his dog staring at me with dark, animalistic eyes.

"You're a bitch."

"And you are standing in an awful dangerous place if you ever want to have puppies, Mutt. I would back up if I were you." Kiba narrowed his eyes, his slightly slitted pupils becoming smaller behind his eyelids.

"Tch, you're all talk, Tanaka."

"Stay there, I dare you." Kiba remained where he stood before he flipped me off. My knee shot up as I grab his shoulders to hold him in place; let's just say I realized just how colorful Kiba's vocabulary was.

"Yeah, I'm completely talk." I don't think he heard much of what I said, well, I don't think anyone heard me over the howls from Kiba. What everyone saw was him doubled over on his knees, screaming his head off.

"FUCK YOU! THAT FUCKING HURT! WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR DAMN PROBLEM!"

"Beyond being forced to go on a mission with the lot of you, not a thing." Kiba sent a vile glare, mustering up a good amount of hatred which I knew I deserved; I would probably get hell for what I did later. But, none of the jounin knew what to do and Rika had learned that scolding us did little, so she just let us get this kind of stuff out of our systems. It was a good while but Kiba finally stood up and returned to his team with his dog back on his head. Plopping down next to Mai, who at the moment was in a fit of laughter, I glanced around the clearing.

"Who the hell are we still waiting for?"

"Team Seven's sensei, Kakashi or whatever." Rika, who had been chatting with the other team leaders, chose to instead occupy the lowest tree branch of the tree Mai and I were leaning against. Tilting her head up, Mai gazed at Rika with bright azure pupils.

"Hey, do you know where Kakashi is? He's late." Rika, bringing her index finger to her bottom lip in though, pondered the question.

"Well, Kakashi has always been late to these kind of things but he's normally only about an hour late so he should be here any minute…" As if on cue, Naruto let out a surprised yelp when his sensei placed a hand on his shoulder. Rika jumped down from the tree branch, withdrawing a scroll from her weapons holster. "Ok, so mission info…mission info…" Rika's eyes scanned the first few inches of the paper, possibly reading this stuff herself for the first time. "It says here, that we are going to be escorting the twin children of a Feudal Lord. Interesting…" Rika paused as she unraveled more of the crisp paper, her eyes darting over the phonetics. "They need the utmost protection…"

"The clients will be met on the edge of Fire Country, near a small market center." I stared at Rika, as did Mai and Hiro as if we didn't really believe her. She made eye contact with each of us her eyes wide and serious.

I shoved my hands deeper in my pockets, watching my feet as we travelled. Mai and I were towards the back, most of the other shinobi clumped together as teams; the only exceptions being Team 7, Hiro, and Ino who had found friends among others beyond their teams. Two of the jonin were placed at the front, the other two at the back of the group.

Our group had been travelling for at least a couple of hours now and only about ten minutes in, I pulled out my MP3 player and shoved one earbud in my right ear; the other earbud Mai took quickly.

"SHUT UP, INO-PIG! SASUKE WOULD NEVER WANT TO WALK WITH YOU!" My hopes of that one shout being all of the screaming were dashed as another piercing shout reached my ears.

"ACTUALLY, IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND, BILLBOARD BROW!" Ino's voice, now quieter, was still as shrill as it always was, "Right Sasuke-kun? You don't want to walk with ugly Billboard Brow, do you? I'll make her leave us alone."

"Tell her she's wrong Sasuke-kun! HE'S MY TEAMMATE, YOU UGLY COW!"

"HE WOULD RATHER BE ON MY TEAM ANYWAYS, BILLBOARD BROW!" The argument that most of the other shinobi were ignoring was almost impossible for me to ignore now. Their shouts kept rapping against my ears and pounding at my head.

"SASUKE-KUN—"

"Would you both just shut up already?" I kicked a rock out of the road, completely ignoring the shocked and almost enraged glares from Sakura and Ino. But both fell silent, their low growls returning to be directed at each other. Mai shook her head, some of her hair falling in her face. I stared up at the road ahead of us, the winding dirt and hills seemingly never ending.

"I'm guessing we're not going to be making it there in just one day?" Mai sent a questioning glance at Rika, who was walking with her sibling only a few feet behind us. It seemed as if everyone's attention was on Rika as she assessed how long our journey would be.

"Well, if I am correct, all four teams will be travelling for at least five days and then to reach our clients, it could be another two or three days." Hearing this information, I hung my head and a groan managed to escape my lips; Mai sighed in agreement.

"What was that for?" My head snapped up, my glower finally resting on Ino.

"What the hell does it matter to you?" Mai questioned the blonde, brushing the annoying strands of hair out of her vision. "It means that neither of us want to be on this stupid mission, especially with all of you."

"What do you mean! This is such a cool mission! It's a C rank and we're the special guards for royalty!" Naruto piped up, taking back to dancing happily.

"Yeah, it's just great," I retorted sarcastically, boring a hole in Naruto's head. I watched my feet with faint interest, memorizing the pattern quickly before noting how dark it began to grow.

The jonin gathered their teams together as we found our resting place for the night: a shaded clearing within the woods that surrounded the road. Rika directed each of us for different camp duties; Hiro was sent to help set up tents, Mai was sent to help cook, and I was told I would be cleaning up after dinner. Mai growled irately as she stormed over to where the other shinobi who were cooking stood brainstorming ideas for food. Plopping down on a log near the glowing fire, I began shuffling items around my bag aimlessly, not really hoping to do much beyond find a few extra kunai to replace in my holster. Rika joined me, remaining silent for a few brief seconds.

"Iruka told me of your training he had begun with you. He asked that we continued that training so after dinner, you and Sasuke need to meet with Kakashi and I," Rika stated, her dark gaze turning to me as I focused my attention further on finding my kunai. Rika gazed at me patiently, waiting for some sort of acknowledgement that I understood.

"Fine," I grumbled angrily, my finger brushing the very blade I had been searching for. I hiss in pain as small drops of blood pulsed out of the miniscule incision.

"DINNER'S READY!" Sakura's (annoying) voice echoed about the clearing as Mai sat next to me with two plates of food in her hand.

"Thanks," I sighed as I took a few test bites of the odd looking substance.

"It tastes better than it looks," she replied, taking her own bites of the gruel. I poked at the food with my fork before taking a tentative bite.

"It's not all that bad," I commented, taking another bite.

"Do you really not trust me to cook good food?" Mai questioned as she chewed on a bite of food.

"No, it's them I don't trust," I assured her, using my fork to gesture to the shinobi around us. No one seemed to hear my whisper as most of them continued eating casually; that is, with the exception of one shinobi.

"Hn…" The low, single-syllable sound scratched against my ears as I sent a dark glare at the nonchalant Uchiha. But I turned away and returned my attention to my diminishing food, stabbing it more violently than before. It was a slow process but eventually all of the plates were piled up high at the edge of one of the logs. After staring at the plates for a minute, I turned to Rika.

"I'm not doing this on my own, am I?" I sighed, turning to my sensei.

"Nope. You, Shikamaru, Shino, and Sasuke will be working together on camp jobs until we reach the clients," She told me, placing her own plate delicately on top of the pile. I sighed heavily, hanging my head as I muttered curses to myself.

"Are you gonna help or just stand there?" Shikamaru drawled, his hands occupied with a portion of the plate stack. Sending him a warning glower, I picked up the last of the plates, Shino and Sasuke already having their own stack. I followed the three of them in a huff, all of us holding our tongues as we came to a nearby stream. Clear water lapped up at the muddy banks of the stream as I plopped the plates down on the ground before kneeling in front of the water. My knees squished in the damp mud as I pulled up the first plate to be cleaned. Using an old rag, I wiped up the excess food from the plates and dipped it into the stream waters, tossing it off to the side with a crash.

"What's your problem, Tanaka?" Sasuke snapped, tossing his own clean plate of to the side. The mud shifted under my knees as I twisted the slightest bit, the cool dirt soothing against my skin.

"What's it matter to you, Uchiha?" I snapped, another plate joining the clean pile. The plates sitting on the forest floor only made them dirty again but I was in no mood to try and deal with that as well. I glared darkly at the Uchiha, his pitch ebony eyes narrowing in a salty glower. Another plate, not mine but another person's, crashed into a pile.

"Would you two at least hate silently," Shikamaru complained, "You're giving me a headache." My glower now focused on the lazy nin as he scrubbed a food-caked dish.

"Poor Shika," I mocked, sending another plate to the "clean" pile. Sasuke tossed his own plate, which crashed even more piercingly.

"Whatever. Just shut the fuck up if you're going to be in such a shitty mood."

"Then stop ticking me off and putting me in a shitty mood." My snarl contorted my facial features into a fierce growl as my anger bubbled under my skin, making my skin itch and squirm.

"Really? I'm the one who puts you in bad moods," He raised, "Your such a loser, you know that Tanaka."

"Thanks for the damn memo!" I was almost at the point of shouting; my anger had gotten the better of me, as always. The tension in the area was a thickened fog, Shikamaru and Shino being completely quiet. But I only greedily fed off the irate charge in the area, the heated rage in my chest increasing in pressure. Again, that stinging charge boldly caused my actions as I punched at the Uchiha's shoulder. My fist made contact and Sasuke was sent tumbling into the stream.

Then, Sasuke's hand grabbed my wrist and I was flung into the stream after him, the slippery mud helping in no way for me to gain traction against Sasuke's tug. The icy water enclosed around me in a tight and breath-taking hug when my head was completely enclosed. Finally placing my feet into the silted riverbed, I stood and returned to my previous occupancy and continued cleaning plates; Shikamaru and Shino had complete stopped their work and were staring at us. My teeth chattered involuntarily as the true icyness of the water was revealed through a sharp gust of wind.

"N-nnot one w-word," I hissed, only two more plates remaining in my pile of uncleaned ones. Determined to stop my chattering, I tightened my jaw as the raven haired and soaked Sasuke passed me to his previous place.

"Loser," he muttered. I refused to release my jaw, even to hurl back some venomous remark, instead choosing to force more pressure into my scrubbing. Sasuke refused to even acknowledge me when he spoke in my direction. "Don't you ever do that again or you will regret it." I applied more and more pressure, even though the plate had already passed my "clean" standards. "Did you hear me?" I guessed he took my hush as a sign that I wasn't affected by his meaningless threat. The plate couldn't take any more and it finally snapped; the same occurred to me.

"WOULD YOU JUST SHUT UP!" I screeched, throwing broken bits of ivory glass into the stream and my fist balling tight enough to constrict blood from my knuckles, "JUST LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE." My breath came out in heavy puffs as Shino and Shikamaru just stared at me, Shikamaru seemed to be sweating under the awkward silence that followed my rant. Sasuke and I glared at each other, his ebony eyes burning with anger and what seemed to me as shock. Then his eyes flicked away to the glass still in my hand. His mouth opened as if he were going to say something and I pounced as he was suddenly thrown back into the mud as I pinned him face up in the mud with my rather large shard of porcelain against his throat. Shino and Shikamaru watched the scene before them in shock as my face became as dark and fierce as my muscles would allow.

"Now you listen to me," I hissed in his face, pressing the shard against his skin, "You don't blame this all on me and if you ever cross me again, I will kick your ass." Sasuke's stare was completely blank before I found myself pressed into the mud myself. Sasuke was hushed as he stared at me for a moment, before hissing at me.

"Fine. And by the way, you're bleeding." I glanced down at my hand, a gaping and profusely bleeding incision breaking up the skin over my hand.

Sitting up, and in the process throwing off the Uchiha, I healed my wound leaving only a thin cut and scar tissue under Sasuke's gaze. His gaze was questioning as the green chakra quickly died from my fingertips. As I stood to leave, Uchiha grasped my hand to examine the cut. I quickly ripped it from his grasp, snarling. "Don't touch me."

Returning to my plates, I wrapped a bit of medical tape about the wound and picked up my pile of plates before stalking off with Shino's, Shikamaru's, and Sasuke's gazes following me. I only heard one more thing before the mute twilight forest surrounded me.

"So, so troublesome…"