Ch 2
Naruto wasn't quite sure what to do with himself at the moment. The sun was setting, and he'd have to go home soon before curfew kicked in, that is, if he didn't feel like breaking some rules and staying out anyway. On his back, his arms supporting his head, he looks up at the clouds and just thinks for a while, something he did every now and then. He wonders about the Contest, and what might happen when he won, the only thing he knew for sure was that he'd never see any of these stupid assholes ever again, winners never returned from wherever they went. Thankfully, he'd already completed the assignment that Iruka had given out, so he had nothing important left to do today, so he could just relax and watch the sun set. A short distance away, he sees a group of older men walking around a corner, being loud and inconsiderate of people who were trying to enjoy a quiet evening. A little ways away from them, about to round a corner in the opposite direction, a rather old lady was meandering down the street, and as he watched her, she clutched her bag a little closer to herself, and Naruto can only assume she was nervous about being alone and having to pass a group making so much noise.
As she passes them, one of the men slow up and look back at her, and even from a distance Naruto hears him snicker. "Hey, old bag, hang on a second." The old woman doesn't slow down or stop, in fact she tries to speed up a little, though she is rather old, so she can only go so fast. The man who spoke obviously wasn't taking no for an answer and rushes up to catch her by the arm, "Hey you old bitch I said hang on… where you off to in such a hurry huh? Shouldn't a feeble little thing like you be home when it gets dark? What are you doing out here?" Despite his questions sounding concerned, his tone belies his intentions, he didn't really care about the lady's safety, in fact he was currently working against it. The old bag looked scared, as she should, but didn't seem to know what to do.
"I'm.…I'm just trying to get home… I… I forgot my things and had to go back for them… just…. Leave me alone… please… " Her words simply make the men laugh, and Naruto watches with narrowing eyes as the man with his hand on the woman's arm tightens his grip to the point of being painful.
"Why don't you just hand over your things and we'll leave it at that. Come on, be a good little old lady eh?" She looks terrified now, and is visibly trying to pull her arm out of the pained grip it was in. She shakes her head, and from where Naruto was getting up he could almost certainly see that she was shaking.
"Just let me go… I don't want trouble, but I can't just give away my things, they are important." This just makes the man get pissed and he yanks her by her arm making her cry out from the pain in her shoulder.
"Bitch you are pissing me off… now you can give us your gadget too, the money will be nice. Take it off, don't make me say it again."
Naruto snickers loudly, catching the attention of the men, "Wow, real big men, picking on a little old lady… how pathetic do you have to be?" He points powerfully at the man holding the old lady, for the first time getting a good look at him, face included. The man had a face tattoo, and a septum piercing, as well as a short fohawk of bright green. His clothes were rugged and worn out, a leather jacket over a t-shirt with a fancy skull coated in flames on it. Naruto doesn't really care enough to keep looking after that, so he simply snickers again, locking his eyes on the apparent leader of the little ragtag muggers. "You guys are so lame I can't even believe it, why don't you just get lost? Unless you'd rather fight me to try to save your pride, after all you can't have much if you rob the elderly." Naruto wasn't even looking at them anymore, in fact his eyes were closed, daydreaming about how grateful the old bag would be when the guys ran off. So he's quite surprised when he feels a fist make contact with his face, the boy thrown back onto his ass from half surprise half impact.
"The fuck do you think you are kid? You want to get your ass kicked that's fine by me, I could use something to blow off a little steam." He looks back at his friends, "Don't let the old bitch get away though… I still want her gadget and shit." Naruto is a little unprepared for that, but he'd made the decision to try to rescue the old bag, so he was gonna do it. He gets up as quickly as he can and raises his fists, inciting a laugh from the man, "You really do have a death wish don't you pipsqueak?" He shakes his head, but raises his own fists in response. Naruto doesn't realize it right away, because he's as oblivious as it gets, but he's at a severe disadvantage. Naruto was much smaller and shorter than the man, and even though he was somewhat muscular for someone his age, he had nothing on this man. So even though he does get a few good hits in on him, he is the first to fall to his knees when a particularly hard punch finds his gut. The instant the impact hits he hears and feels a creaking in his ribs, as though it were giving under too much pressure.
Naruto was breathless, but he still looks up with gritted teeth, wiping sweat from his forehead, "You… piece of shit…. If you think I'm just gonna sit back and let you beat the shit out of me you're dead wrong…" This just annoys the man even more, the man making a 'tsk' noise and giving Naruto a particularly nasty punch to his nose. Naruto falls back, reeling at the blow, staring up at the sky while his mind swims quite a bit. He could feel blood running from his nose now, as it was more than likely broken. His eyes were starting to swell up too, making it kinda hard to see. He was in quite a lot of pain, both in his face and his body, and he's reminded of the other day when Sakura had beaten the crap out of him. She hadn't hurt him quite this bad, though it wasn't anything he was incapacitated by, he was more just stunned from the head swimming.
"Are you gonna stay down, or am I actually going to have to kill you?" It takes him a second to find the voice, but then that face leans into his, a few dark patches where Naruto had managed to punch him, and he sees the face is sneering. The man was kneeling over Naruto, his knees on either side of his legs, a rather intimidating pose, though he wasn't too fazed by it. His sneer pisses Naruto off, so he grits his teeth and tries to focus enough to get some words out.
"F-Fuck you, asshole." This at least gets rid of the guy's sneer, replacing it with a scowl.
"Fine, have it your way, I haven't had a chance to stab a bitch in a long time, I've missed it." St-Stab? Sure enough, the guy brings his gadget forward, presses a few buttons, and a small blade slips out along the top of his fist, poking out a few good three inches. It was small, but Naruto was still sure it would hurt if it went in him. For the first time, Naruto was feeling unsure of himself, and a little fearful. He'd never been in danger of actually dying before, so this is a first. He struggles to lift himself up a little so he could try…. What?... What could he do at this point? He wasn't going to beg for his life, that's for sure, but he also didn't feel like dying. With wide eyes, Naruto watches as the man pulls his fist back, preparing to punch Naruto in the gut with his blade.
"W-wait!" It was too late. He lands a hard blow right below Naruto's ribs and a sudden searing pain overwhelms him. Unable to control his shock and obvious pain, he screams out in a loud huff of air, throwing his head back and once more flat on his back, now clutching the open wound that quickly started to bleed, though it's feels like more than it actually is.
The man laughs at Naruto's crumpled form, still leaning over him, "Well well! Not so big now that you got a taste of what I'm made of huh? Stupid kids like you should really learn not to mess with adults, just stay out of other people's business, you'd have lived longer that way." He gives a sinister grin and pulls his fist back to give him another piercing punch, this one luckily caught by a defensively raised arm Naruto had lifted out of pure instinct. The blade sinks into his forearm and Naruto yells out in pain again, now bleeding from two places. Pure unadulterated fear starts to overtake Naruto, seeing in his face that the man fully intended to keep stabbing him until he was dead. His breathing takes on more of a hyperventilating nature, and he tries to push himself backward along the ground in an attempt to get out from under the man.
An electronic shot rings out in the air and Naruto feels the man on top of him go stiff and suddenly slump over him, his face falling against Naruto's chest, and Naruto sees that one of the man's eyes is now a gaping hole, burnt out with plasmic residue melting along the inside. He was in shock, and a little horrified at the sight of a fresh dead body, as he had never seen one before, obviously. Panicking a little, he looks around for the source of the bullet and quickly finds it from about ten feet behind him. A dark figure was holding a pistol, and was aiming it at the rest of the men, the ones looking after the old lady. "If you don't want to end up like your friend here, you'll get lost. Now."
The men are quick to escape while they can, but Naruto isn't quite feeling relieved that they were gone… well… obviously he was glad they were leaving, but there was just one thing that kept him from really feeling any kind of happy variant. The figure quickly closes the distance between himself and Naruto, kneeling beside him, "Where are you hurt?"
"Leave me alone… I don't want help from y-ow-you…" He was holding the places that had been stabbed, his uninjured arm holding his injured arm and his injured arm holding his side and now that he was no longer in danger, his pulse rate was dropping and the pain was getting worse. He grits his teeth and shuts his eyes, trying to just breathe through it.
Sasuke huffs, sounding half surprised half annoyed, "You've been stabbed… twice… there's a pretty good chance if we don't get you some help you could bleed out… so how are we gonna do this? Do you think you can walk? Or am I gonna have to carry you?" This suggestion makes Naruto laugh, and shake his head, then yelp and groan when the movement of laughter hurts him.
"No...No way am I being carried like an invalid by someone like you… I'm walking." Sasuke would have been fine with this, if Naruto could have actually done it. But Naruto struggles just to sit up, still clutching his wounds. His breath gets ragged as he just sits there for a minute, trying to summon the strength to stand and walk on his own. But he's still not moving.
Eventually Sasuke gets impatient, and puts his hands on Naruto, giving him something to lean against to try to stand, "I'll help you up at least, then we'll see how long you can walk for, if at all, ok?" Naruto just nods, in a bit too much pain to resist him anyway. He grunts in pained effort as he struggles to stand, only with Sasuke's help able to manage it at all. On his feet now, he looked very unsteady, and when Sasuke tries to look into his eyes to see if they were focused or not, Naruto quickly looks away, blushing, thinking it weird and embarrassing that he'd tried to look at him so intensely. Unfortunately for Naruto, he was a little too unsteady on his feet and as soon as he tries to take a step, he trips and falls heavily against Sasuke, who deftly catches him in his arms. "Looks like we're doing this my way… try not to be a brat about it." With more care than Naruto expects, he is scooped up into Sasuke's arms, and held quite securely. He figures he must be heavy, there was no way Sasuke could carry him the whole way.
"Only for part of the way… until my head clears up a little, alright? I don't like this."
Sasuke just snickers at this, which makes Naruto scowl, "And this is my idea of a good time? Suck it up, it won't take long to get to the hospital if we hurry." Grimacing with a twinge of pain, Naruto suddenly remembers the whole reason he got into the fight in the first place, and he looks around for the old lady, who appears to be missing.
"Hey.…where…. Where'd she go?"
Sasuke shakes his head, "You're really oblivious aren't you? She ran off when those scumbags took off. She'll probably be fine on her own, at least she should be." Sasuke didn't sound too concerned about the lady, but Naruto had bigger things to worry about right now. His side was killing him, and he knew he needed to keep pressure on it, but touching it made it hurt more. Still, he keeps his hand over the wound, trying his best to seal it. Sasuke carries him at a brisk pace, and Naruto finds being carried very uncomfortable, he was being jostled slightly with every step, and his weight was supported by the backs of his knees and the wide part of his shoulders. It takes way too long for them to reach the hospital's white and pristine exterior. Sasuke carries him right through the front doors, his breath becoming a little labored as the doors slide open, as he was getting tired from carrying Naruto. Naruto's face was burning as a few people turn to look at him, nurses quick to respond and fetching a hover-chair for Naruto. Sasuke waits for them, then sets Naruto in the chair with a sigh of relief.
Naruto makes what he attempted to be a snickering sound, but it comes out strained and obviously pained. There was a lot of blood on Naruto's hands, but less than there would have been if he hadn't kept the pressure on. Naruto probably looked pretty pale, but he still looks up at Sasuke to mock him, "Not tired are you? I must be pretty bulky if you can't even carry me without getting tired… not so great now are you?" He then grits his teeth, shutting his eyes as the nurse's push his chair. They scan his id in his gadget, to get his medical information, and once they are sure he's not allergic to any medication he is sedated. Naruto is unaware of what happens after that, as he drifts in blissfully ignorant drug induced sleep.