Author Notes: This is a shorter chapter than normal but I hope you'll be pleased anyway. Don't forget to send your reviews. Can't improve if I don't know what's missing. Besides I don't really want to go clean my house. It's too messy.

Disclaimer: Sakura, Naruto, Kakashi, Tsunade, Sasuke, Iruka and the rest of the crew aren't mine but I wish they were.

Chapter Eighteen

A One of a Kind Birthday Gift

Festival day arrived and Sakura was cleaning toilets. She had been told that the Festival was off limits for her until the bill for Naruto's home repairs was fully paid off. Since some of the books that had been destroyed were limited editions or very old and therefore rare that wasn't going to happen by the time the Festival was over. Tsunade-sama was still looking for replacements for the books.

But in Naruto's apartment no one was even thinking about her. The rookies were surprised when they learned Naruto was in town. They found out when both Sasuke and Hinata refused the company of their other friends to rush off to Naruto's place. They converged on his apartment building and as a group, minus Sakura, they hid out inside the small place. Sasuke checked to make sure Naruto had decent clothes for the show that night and both boys began to pace nervously even though the show was not until after sunset. Both had to do something they didn't want to do. Tenten went into his kitchen and was helping Choji and Ino make food for all of them, while Neji and Shikamaru played Shogi on the board Shikamaru had brought with him. Of course Shikamaru never left home without both a Shogi and a Go game. Lee was doing push-ups in the living room and declaring that if he could not do one thousand of them than he would do five hundred step runs up and down Naruto's apartment stairs. Kiba was playing with Akamaru while Shino sat watching Naruto and Sasuke pace and listened as Hinata tried to reassure them that they'd be fine.

There was a knock on the door and everyone froze except Lee who, thinking it might be Sakura, jumped up and ran over to open it. He yelled, "HI COME IN MY YOUTHFUL CHE. . ." His words were cut off as an angry mob swirled through the open door and trampled him under foot trying to do as much damage as they possibly could and be the one to actually kill the murderer of their precious hero. The rookies fell into position and vigorously defended themselves against the villagers. Punches flew and so did feet. The mob carried broken bottles and clubs, knives and some wore brass knuckles. Though the rookies had weapons there was an unwritten rule that they did not use them against Leaf citizens. So they fought with empty hands and didn't use their chakra. This made the fight a slightly uneven one due to the constricted fighting area but the rookies held their own. Soon blood was flying though it wasn't all from the villagers. None of them got past the rookies to reach Naruto but the damage was done as someone decided to try and set fire to his apartment. If they couldn't get to him themselves maybe the fire would.

Bottles filled with a flammable liquid and stoppered with soaked rags were tossed at his couch and curtains hard enough to break the bottles and the curtains went up in flames. Those flames were soon joined by his new couch and as the living room was engulfed in flames, everyone dove for safety. Naruto, still in his bedroom, grabbed his outfit for the contest from the bed where he'd laid it for Sasuke's approval and his guitar on the way out his bedroom window. He stood in the alley watching as the emergency Anbu squads arrived to put out the fire. His friends dove out other windows and he watched as all the recent repairs were undone. He was soon joined by Sasuke and Hinata. Together they watched other Anbu arrive and several villagers got arrested or taken to the hospital but as far as Naruto was concerned it was already too late.

He turned and walked away with Hinata and Sasuke to guard him. They went to the Uchiha District and slipped unnoticed into Sasuke's house. Went they got there Sasuke went off to get a shower and change his clothes while Naruto just sat staring at a wall. Hinata excused herself to go home and clean up also but swore she'd be back as quick as she could. Sasuke came out redressed in clean clothes and tossed a towel to Naruto who didn't move. He tried talking to him but Naruto either didn't hear him or simply didn't want to respond. He tried to distract him but nothing he tried worked. Naruto had retreated from the real world. This was just the final straw and he needed something he wouldn't find in the real world so he'd gone internal. Sasuke sighed knowing there was nothing he could do but wait and hope he'd be back in time to keep his contract.

In his head Naruto had done what he always did when the village attacked. He'd retreated to Kyuubi. Kyuubi wrapped him in his tails and hid him next to the wall shielding him with his own body. Even if the stupid mind-walkers tried to find the boy they wouldn't see him where the fox was hiding him and Kyuubi would keep him safe until Kit was ready to go back out there. It may have seemed immature but there was only so much anyone could take before they had to shut down and Naruto was at his limit. He had retreated in to sleep curled up next to Kyuubi and this close to the big Fox he wouldn't have any nightmares. He wasn't aware that it was more because only his mind was sleeping than it was proximity to Kyuubi. He'd never done this when others were around to tell him he wasn't actually sleeping before.

Hinata came back and Sasuke left her with Naruto while he went to find Iruka. If anyone knew what to do it'd be him. Sasuke just hoped he'd be able to find him. He ran across Ino who was looking for them.

"Sasuke. Is he alright?" she asked.

"Hn"

"Damn Sasuke. I need to know. Talk to me. Is he alright?"

"Depends on who's asking, Ino. If you want to know for that woman you hang around with now, tell her yeah he's just peachy with getting his home trashed twice within a month. He's great watching his friends get beat to a pulp for the crime of being in his home. How do you think he is?" He left her standing there staring after him with tears running down her face. He was right and she knew it. It was a stupid question. There was no way Naruto was ok right now. She hung her head and wandered off heading for home and the privacy of her own bedroom.

Sasuke ran into Shikamaru with Choji who were looking for Ino. He pointed to where he'd last seen her and left them chasing after her. Then he ran into Neji who was looking for Hinata to make sure the heiress had gotten out of the fire ok. He told her she had and was safe at his place watching over Naruto and left Neji staring after him. Then he ran into Tenten and Lee who were both looking for Neji though Lee was looking for Naruto also. Both his eyes were swollen as were his lips and it looked as if his nose might be broken, given the strip of tape over it and the traces of blood under it. But other than that Lee was alright and way more concerned about his friends than he was himself, for all that Tenten was practically carrying him.

Sasuke showed them where he'd run across Neji but said nothing about Naruto. He sped off with Lee's shout echoing in his ears. "BUT WHAT ABOUT YOUTHFUL NARUTO? I MUST GIVE MY MOST SINCERE APOLOGIES TO MY MOST YOUTHFUL OF RIVALS FOR THE DAMAGE I HAVE CAUSED! THE POWER OF YOUTH DEMANDS THAT I MAKE AMENDS FOR MY TRAGIC MISTAKE IN THE DESTRUCTION OF HIS HOME."

Sasuke escaped and finally found Iruka just leaving a bookstore. He didn't say a word as he grabbed his arm and started dragging the poor teacher off to the Uchiha estate. "Sasuke! What is happening? Where are you taking me?" Iruka asked him panting with the effort of trying to keep up.

"Naruto," was the only answer he got and the only one he needed. He stepped up his pace no longer trying to pull away and together they raced back to where Naruto was waiting. They didn't even see the other rookies as they passed them by in a blur. One by one the rookies fell into step behind them and Sasuke inadvertently led them all back to where Naruto was.

As soon as Iruka saw Naruto, he had Sasuke and Hinata distract their friends to keep anyone from seeing him this beat down. When the room was empty he knelt down and wrapped his arms around his adopted little brother. Although he had never formally adopted him, ever since the Mizuki incident he'd seen Naruto as surrogate brother and the only family he had. He didn't need to know what had happened. He just needed to know Naruto needed him now. And so they sat there together. Iruka held onto Naruto and waited for some sign that the young man was ready to talk and trusted that he'd tell him what had happened then.

At the hospital, Tsunade was kept busying treating minor burns while supervising Sakura cleaning the bathrooms. The words she'd overheard from Naruto still repeated in her head making her short-tempered and unusually quiet. She could still hear the betrayal he felt in his words and it still made her want to break down and cry. No one would ever know she'd fallen asleep crying in Jiraiya's arms the night before.

Sakura finally had enough. She was tired and she wanted to get to the Festival. She had figured if she could get all the bathrooms done in time, Tsunade-shishui would release her and she could slip off to the Festival without her knowing about it. This was the last bathroom and it was by far the worst one of them all. Someone had even thrown toilet paper on the ceiling. How Gross! Without thinking she used her chakra to climb the walls and started scrubbing the ceiling using her chakra to stay affixed to the ceiling. Then she climbed down and using more chakra created a couple of clones to clean with her. They each had their own buckets and supplies so the job went quickly. Toilets were cleaned by her clones as she washed the mirrors over the sinks and when the toilets were done she set the clones to scrubbing the floor. Finally the bathroom sparkled and she dispersed the clones, gaining back a measure of her depleted chakra. She rested a few minutes to recharge before going to tell Tsunade-shishui the job was done. When she did she found her teacher coming out of a patient room and waited to be addressed before speaking. The last couple of days had taught her that it was better to let others address her before she spoke to them.

"What is it, Sakura?"

"I've finished, Shishui."

"Find Shizune and have her check your work. I'm too busy, since my Second-in-Command here decided to be a spoilt brat, to check the work of a menial laborer." She turned away and walked to the desk to give patient care instructions to the nurses stationed there. She paid no attention to the flash of anger in Sakura's eye or the grim set of her mouth as she left her behind.

Anbu dotted the hallway like flies but Tsunade didn't care. Behind every door an Anbu stood in front of, lay a patient who'd tried to hurt Naruto. She'd thought all this crap was in the past and that he was just being blind in not realizing he was too big to be hurt by peasants any more but now she knew better. Mobs made even the weakest men strong. She had treated Lee for his cuts and bruises and fixed his broken nose before he and Tenten had gone off looking for Naruto so that Lee could apologize for opening the door to the mob.

Shizune came around the corner just as Sakura was trying to slip out of the building unnoticed. "Ah, there you are Sakura. Has Tsunade-sama released you from bathroom duty already?" She sounded pleasant but she already knew what Sakura had done. However when she had told Tsunade that Sakura had used chakra to get the final bathroom clean Tsunade got a devilish glint in her eye and said, "She's trying to get to the Festival. But she won't make it. Cut her off and give her this job to do." She leaned over and whispered in Shizune's ear. When the two heads separated both faces wore the same grin. Tsunade's concern for Naruto's well-being was matched by Shizune's own.

Now she just said, "Good, good. Come with me please. Tsunade-sama has another job that needs done and, since you are forbidden to go to the Festival and done with the bathrooms here, you can do it so we won't need to pull in any off-duty nins. They can still enjoy their holiday." She led a very disgruntled Sakura to the local garbage dump. When they stood beside a steaming pile of garbage, she said, "A merchant lost a very important invoice in his trash. The manager of the dump said the trash from his area of the village was dumped here. Of course this isn't just his garbage but there was a mix-up here so there's alot more than there normally would be. Usually paper trash gets dumped in the incinerator pile but due to the mix-up it got dumped here instead. Lucky for the merchant though, since if it had been dumped where it was supposed to have been, the invoice would have been history already."

"I know it looks like a wet mess but I'm sure you can manage just fine. You'll have to check every piece of paper for what your looking for. Just set every invoice you find aside and I'll check it when I come by after dinner. You'll have to use your chakra to make the writing on the invoices show up and Sakura, those invoices better be dry and clean when I come back." Sakura looked at the pile and groaned. The pile made her look like an ant next to a tree branch laying next to a tree trunk. In a forest of sixty year old trees. The pile was huge and she was supposed to find one little piece of paper that was probably already decomposed to illegibility? How?

Shizune watched from the distance as Sakura sank down on her knees and bowed her head. She knew the girl was crying even though she was too far away to hear her but it was her own fault. She should have obeyed the rules. She'd been told no chakra on those bathroom but she used it anyway. She'd been told to stay away from Naruto's place but she'd gone after him anyway. Not once but twice. She'd been told to knock it off and keep her fists to herself but she didn't listen. One way or another the girl would learn her place. She stood keeping watch until Sakura stood up and began weeding through the morass. Of course there wasn't a missing invoice but Sakura didn't know that, she thought walking away. A small corner of her felt sorry for the girl and she wondered how long it would be before Sakura finally figured out her lesson well enough to remember it. Tsunade was devilishly clever when it came to figuring out messy things for misbehaving nins to do and Shizune found herself wondering just what else her boss would come up with if this didn't work. One thing was sure. Sakura wouldn't be running into either Naruto or Sasuke out here. No one came to the dump for any reason. The place stunk.

Kakashi was escorting his daughters and Watarimono around the Festival booths. Everyone was chattering about the fire at the Demon's place earlier that day. A lot of them were bemoaning the fact that he hadn't been alone when the mob got there and that his henchmen had driven them off by putting several of them in the hospital. There was talk of payback, since the Demon had escaped harm, and vengeance against those he'd used to defend him. Kakashi's expression turned grim and he could barely contain his killing intent but even his daughters would be scared if he let that loose and he didn't want to ruin their day.

Jiyuu took his hand and gave him an understanding look. She knew her father really cared about his students and this talk was upsetting him. She didn't know who the Demon was but from how angry it was making him, she knew the Demon was an important person to him.

Finally Kakashi had all he could take and led his family out of the Festival area. Once they were away he looked Watari right in the eye and calmly said, "Now do you understand? You made him walk around the village showing everyone what a fool they've been in thinking him stupid and weak for all these years and dredged everything back out into the open. These people haven't forgotten what's housed inside him or their loved ones that Beast took away from them forever. They can't forget. That fire at his home is your fault and if any harm has come to him because of it, you might as well as been the one to strike the blow yourself. Take the girls and go home. I'm going to go find my team." He gave each of the twins a kiss before turning away to melt into the press of people.