A/N: Okay I planned on having this up yesterday...but I was awake until like 30 minutes passed my bed time trying to just get the chapter typed up. Why do I always do this to myself? I did it again readers, I extended the chapter more than I needed to. On paper: 6 pages (if that) On Word: 12 pages...I doubled it!

Warnings: Okay this chapter DOES have Shonen-Ai (Rock LeexGaara) (SasukexNaruto I guess but nothing major), the slightest Shojo-Ai (TsunadexShizune) and some Hetero (ShikamaruxTemari). As always my ninjas cuss, and since I am the narrator I swear and there is more sarcasm in this chapter than those that preseded it. I feel I must tell you that Sasuke is also OOC but HE will explain that later on in the story. Right now you will not know!

The Story So Far: The aftermath of the battle is evident in the tired eyes, scabbing wounds and stitches that adorn both the Konoha and Suna team. Chouji's in surgery, Ino's a mess, and Sasuke keeps locking his jaw. How did Chouji's surgery go? Will Ino get some decent sleep? And will Sasuke ever just speak up?

Chapter 5

Neither said a word about how they always ended up tangled in the other's limbs before daybreak. No, asking about it would just make it that much more real. It was okay to end up like that, but not talk about it. The logic was screwy, the wake ups were pleasant and the conversations were normal. Why would they ruin that by questioning the other's intentions?

Though they were on a don't ask, don't tell basis no one else was. A few times Kiba took Naruto to the side (much to the disappointment of Sasuke) to ask him why they were always together. Sasuke didn't need help getting around, and all that time spent together made them look like an item, not that anyone would mind. Not that they hadn't expected it anyway…he said he was just curious. Naruto smiled at him and said that he had no idea and that he didn't really care why they were so close he just cared that they were close. Kiba gave him a confused look but began to walk off as he waved a goodbye.

Being around those two made his head hurt so very much. After the encounter Naruto didn't wonder any less or anymore about their strange friendship than he did before. When they got back to Sasuke's hospital room they sat cross legged on the hospital bed and ate the chips and onigiri and drank their juice while talking about the trivialities of life. A few times Sasuke's hand would brush Naruto's and linger for longer than necessary. Of course right after he was 'discovered' he retracted his hand from Naruto as if the boy had the plague.

A knock at the door made Sasuke's jaw lock and made Naruto trot over to the door to answer it. Sakura stood on the other side with Ino, the two of them looking as if Naruto was the one to intrude on their conversation. Naruto held onto the door and observed them, the dark circles under Ino's and Sakura's eyes were prevalent, and the tear streaks were even more obvious than that.

"Do you two wanna come in?" Naruto asked stepping aside to show them into the room.

Ino stepped in first taking Sakura by the wrist to help her in. She grabbed a chair with her fatigued hand and sat down, giving Sasuke an all knowing look before turning away to see Sakura sitting next to her.

"Naruto," Ino began in a voice that was heavy with insomnia. "Chouji's surgery was a success. But we'll have to stay at the hospital for three more days before he can be released."

Naruto's eyes widened in joy, "Really?! That's great!!!" He got up from the side of the bed that he had sat on and hugged her. It wasn't a bear hug, like the ones he gave people when his happiness was too much to contain. No, that was too much force. He was scared he was going to break her in half if he did that.

"Is it okay for the stay to be so short?" He asked after withdrawing from the kind of hug.

"Yeah," Sakura answered sitting forward as she tucked her foot under her thigh. "They told us that they were going to put him in intensive recovery and he's a fast healer anyway."

Ino gave him a weak smile, it matched Sakura's perfectly. They were the picture of worried friends to a T. Naruto could tell that they hadn't spent as much time sleeping as they should have. But with the storm passed and they could rest easier now. In the hospital they were safe, and now that Chouji was okay their worries were wiped away.

"That's great," Naruto added smiling big enough to make up for the both of them.

The room seemed a little tense but that was because Sasuke was only watching the interaction, offering no congrats, or conversation. It was awkward to say the least. For Naruto it took all of his control not to turn around and smack Sasuke. Sure the boy was internally healing but that didn't mean that he had to keep his mouth shut every time some one besides him was around. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to help with this control thing.

"We'd better get going," Ino said standing up slowly; tired muscles only let you move so fast after all. "We just wanted to tell you so that you weren't worried."

Sakura stood up as well, just as slow. But both of them were up before they turned to Sasuke and said their goodbyes. He just kind of sat their and blinked at them while Naruto ushered them to the door. Once they were out Naruto closed the door and let out a sigh.

"You know, you could try to be more sociable," he said closing his eyes for a second.

"I could," Sasuke said resting his chin on his hand.

"Then why aren't you?" Naruto asked walking back to the bed. Sasuke looked at Naruto out of the corner of his eye, all the while keeping his face turned to the wall in front of him.

"I don't want to," Sasuke finally said. Never mind that he didn't bother to finish his sentence, he probably wouldn't even if Naruto held a kunai to his throat.

Naruto sighed again before he sat down on the bed and laid out behind Sasuke. The other one turned around slightly to get a look at Naruto, being in a hospital seemed to exhaust him fast. Sasuke finished turning around and laid on his side to come face to face with Naruto.

"You're such a bastard," Naruto muttered pouting his bottom lip out a little bit.

Sasuke took a longer part of Naruto's hair and twirled it on his index finger. Normally this would be a really weird thing to do, but ever since they'd gotten to the hospital Sasuke had made it a point to twirl Naruto's hair at every chance. A weird habit but Naruto settled into it after it was obvious that Sasuke wasn't going to stop just because Naruto was uncomfortable.

"And you're an idiot," Sasuke replied watching the way Naruto's hair twisted around his slender finger.

"You're so original…" he drawled trying to wave away Sasuke's hand. This of course didn't work. Sasuke merely continued to twist his hair after the blond was quite done with trying to stop him.

"Isn't it dangerous to use your entire vocabulary in one sentence?" Sasuke asked smirking that smirk that made you feel like you should be drooling on yourself and babbling about how plants are excellent company at night.

"Shut up you! I know more words than just 'you're so original!'" Naruto defended grabbing Sasuke's hand to stop him this time.

Sasuke wrangled his hand out of Naruto's, "Whatever you say moron."

Naruto was about to let Sasuke have a piece of his mind when Sasuke covered his mouth with his now free hand. The look Sasuke had dared Naruto to speak and made his throat bob when he swallowed audibly. Naruto licked Sasuke's hand, causing him to pull it back in disgust and wipe it all over Naruto's shirt.

"You could have used your own clothes!" Naruto reprimanded as he tried to wipe his own saliva off of his shirt.

"Didn't I tell you to be quiet?" Sasuke asked furrowing his brows in frustration.

"Since when did I take orders from you?" Naruto retorted snorting in the process.

"Who cares when it began?" he answered. "As long as you follow orders from your superiors."

"Superior?! Yeah right!" Naruto laughed at this. "In case you need a reminder…We're BOTH still genin!"

"Gah, do you ever shut up?!" Sasuke honestly knew the answer but if he said something like that he evaded having to come up with something clever to say to the little factoid that Naruto just pointed out. Needless to say Sasuke was not thrilled about having to be told this by the most unobservant person he's ever had the displeasure of meeting.

"Ha! You can't think of anything to say!"

He chooses now to notice these things…Sasuke's mind growled as Sasuke went to cover Naruto's mouth again. This time Naruto craned his neck to avoid being silenced. He let out a laugh as Sasuke made another attempt. Naruto backed up a little but not enough to fall off the edge of the bed. Sasuke's face was showing the lines of frustration while he swiped at the stupid boy on the bed.

"Am I too quick for you Uchiha?" he taunted as he made for the moving hand.

Sasuke pressed forward a little bit and Naruto went toppling onto the floor. He landed with a loud thud, much to the satisfaction of a certain hospital patient. Sasuke leaned over the bed so that his bangs were obeying the laws of gravity, and so that he could smirk down at Naruto and his clumsiness.

"Am I too smart for you Uzumaki?" Sasuke used Naruto's own tease against him. Touché Sasuke.

Naruto glared at him, stupid smart bastard had to outsmart him. Then again in retrospect that really wasn't that much of a feat in itself. But any victory, big or small, was a victory none the less. Sasuke stuck his hand out to help Naruto up. The hand was slapped away indignantly.

Naruto could get himself up, thank you very much.

"You're such a bastard," Naruto said as he sat back down on the small bed.

"Oh, who's original now?" Sasuke asked using another of Naruto's insults against him.

"I hate you…"

Sasuke shrugged, "I hate you too."

The next day was the same as the last. Sasuke and Naruto woke up tangled in each other's arms, they had conversations (some only a few words long, others felt like they could go on for hours), and they stuck close to each other when they left the comfort of the hospital room. To everyone else when they stood at the vending machines it looked as if Naruto was talking to himself, though this wouldn't come as a shock to them, Sasuke was talking, but it was just barely loud enough for Naruto to hear. In fact most of Naruto's yelling was about how low he spoke. Then after he huffed visibly Naruto would deposit coins and gather the food and the two would scurry back to Sasuke's hospital room.

When anyone came to visit Naruto would entertain them. Some of the guests, like Kiba, Shikamaru and Lee would pretend like the Uchiha wasn't even there. If he wasn't willing to talk they weren't going to make it any more uncomfortable by asking why he wasn't talking to them. But for others, namely Sakura, it was slow torture. She had been so desperate to make him talk one time that she was nearly in tears when Naruto got up and hugged her.

He just needs time, he assured her as he ran his hand down the length of her short pink hair. She nodded and swallowed as much air as she could so she could steady her emotions. After Naruto relinquished his comforting grip on Sakura she stood, said her goodbyes and went to find Ino or some one else from the team. Naruto began to reflect on who Sakura had become. She wasn't trying to get Sasuke to talk because she still had that childish, superficial, crush she doted over in her youth. She was trying to get him to talk because they were friends, (former) teammates and comrades.

Sakura had grown into a beautiful, independent woman. Whether or not she'd been forced to become that woman was up for debate. The whole team was forced to face their inner demons and conquer them because Sasuke had turned his back on them.

The clicking of the door signified that they were alone now, and it served to pull Naruto out of his thoughts.

"Why can't you just talk to her?" Naruto asked sitting on the chair that Sakura occupied previously.

"Because…" Sasuke answered ambiguously.

"Good reason," Naruto rolled his eyes. He knew Sasuke wasn't going to say anything else, even if his life depended on it.

When the second day after Chouji's surgery rolled around Kakashi paid the boys a visit. He was far too stretched to care that one of his former charges weren't participating in the conversation. Though it was nearly ten at night when Kakashi came to talk to them, it felt like the middle of the day on the bridge. As usual he was late.

"Chouji just received the okay to go," Kakashi started with his usual bored voice. "So we'll be heading out tomorrow morning. Get your things together so we can get home faster."

"Can do sensei!" Naruto affirmed in his go-get-em voice.

"Lovely…" Kakashi commented turning his half lidded eye to the blond ball of energy he was proud to call his student. "Just make sure you two don't oversleep. In the words of Shikamaru, it would be 'troublesome'," Okay Kakashi needed to hang out with other people now. When he starts to quote Shikamaru (whose vocabulary seemed to solely consist of troublesome every other word) Naruto knew that he was pleading for contact with other people.

"'Kay, rest up so that you can make it back. We won't be taking a break this time," Kakashi warned before slipping out of the door to climb into his own bed down the hall.

Sasuke's whole body visibly relaxed, his jaw muscles rolling beneath the skin. Naruto turned around to face Sasuke on the bed, he wasn't tired and Sasuke gave off no signals of fatigue.

"What do you want to do?" Naruto asked. He skipped asking if Sasuke was even tired. That was too polite since he already knew the answer to that question. Go right in for the facts, that was the way he was.

"I don't know," Sasuke answered shrugging. "We should probably try to sleep so that we can get up tomorrow."

"But I'm not tired," Naruto pointed out. "And you're not tired," he emphasized his point by literally pointing at Sasuke. "So what good will that do? We'll just sit up and talk in the dark."

Sasuke turned his face to Naruto he was watching the wallpaper on the surrounding walls age. He looked him up and down questioningly. Even though Naruto had a point Sasuke had to make him feel like he was an idiot. It was routine and Sasuke wasn't about to break routine.

"Well," the boy began. "How about we sit up until we fall asleep?"

It was so simple and obvious, why hadn't Naruto thought of it? Pretty much because it was simple and obvious is why. Naruto watched as Sasuke slid down into the itchy blanket further, he soon was climbing up to rest his head on the stiff hospital-issued pillows. Once his head hit those crinkly pillows he felt the onset of fatigue. How had he gotten this tired?

Sasuke pulled the blanket up to sit more comfortably on his chest and below his hands. Naruto pushed his feet into the folds of the fabric to try to warm them up. It took Sasuke to get him into the blanket, how had Naruto gotten that tired. He laid on his side, as did Sasuke. He wanted so badly to reach out and touch Sasuke's smooth skin. For all he knew this could be their last night together. The second they got back to Konoha there was a huge, monumental, chance that Sasuke would be incarcerated and sentenced to death.

Almost as if he read Naruto's mind Sasuke placed his hand on Naruto's warm face. He held it still for a second before he let his fingers trace over the thin markings on the male's face. Naruto closed his eyes, easing into relaxation with every gentle touch. There was so much to say but no words were right. There was something on the edge of his tongue begging to be turned into voice and emotion, but his tongue was weighted down by a limited vocabulary and misplaced time.

"Don't worry," Sasuke whispered as Naruto drifted off into sleep from wracking his brain for the right words. Exhaustion always won these sorts of battles.

"I won't leave you again," he added when he was positive that Naruto was deeply sleeping.

After a few more moments of watching the steady rise and fall of Naruto's chest Sasuke took his hand away from Naruto's face and folded it into his chest to get more comfortable.

Naruto pushed his body away from the bed as his head swirled with the familiar sensation of grogginess. He rubbed at his eyes, reached his arms to the sky and then shook Sasuke awake. Sasuke tried to bat Naruto's offending hand away but it just came back and shook him harder.

"Give me five more minutes dammit!" Sasuke demanded vehemently.

"Nope, Kakashi-sensei'll be here any minute," Naruto warned shaking him more dramatically.

"No he won't," Sasuke informed him knowing full well of his old teacher's habits.

"Just get up so we can get ready…" Naruto ordered not sparing a moment to stop shaking Sasuke.

"Leave me alone," Sasuke commanded as he tried to make his body more rigid to avoid being shaken up.

With the new development of a rigid teen, Naruto started poking his sides to annoy him and hopefully wake him up. But now waking him up was second to annoying him. Sasuke tried not to wiggle as Naruto's finger assaulted his side and barely succeeded. If Naruto were to poke him a hundred times Sasuke would have squirmed at least twenty of those times.

"Fine! I'm up!" Sasuke threw the blanket off of himself and sat up, his mood already pissy.

"Good, now we've gotta get ready," Naruto smiled through his tiredness and after another round of stretching his arms out he crawled out of bed and felt his legs nearly give way when he stepped on his feet.

He steadied himself and walked over to his travel bag. A few minutes of rummaging produced many plastic wrappers, a few dirty shirts and a pair of clean pants. Naruto unbuttoned his dirty pants and pulled the clean ones on after kicking the unclean ones to the side. Sasuke merely brushed out his hair with the comb he found on the chair, where Naruto left it yesterday, and fixed his normal clothes to look more presentable. He had refused to wear the hospital gown for more than three hours, so he climbed into the clothes he'd worn for the battle. Thank the lord the hospital staff had clean them while he was knocked out.

The sound of the door knob being pushed down filled the silence that sat comfortably between the two boys. Kakashi followed the sound, he invited himself in.

"Good, you're both up," he commented surveying the room. "We're going to head out in thirty minuets so finish up here."

"You got it!" Naruto answered shoving his dirty clothes into his bag. Sasuke only nodded to acknowledge that he understood.

Kakashi yawned and then walked out of the room, closing the door as he did so. Sasuke barely relaxed, in fact if you weren't Naruto you probably would have missed it. Naruto buttoned his pants and patted his clothed thighs to loosen the fabric. He turned his gaze to Sasuke, who was watching him with an arched brow.

"What?" Naruto asked scowling slightly.

Sasuke turned away, "Nothing at all."

"If you're not gonna tell me anything then don't stare at me," Naruto laid his rules out and walked up to Sasuke stopping just a few inches from him.

"And when did you become my ruler?" Sasuke inquired crossing his arms over his chest and resting his weight on his back foot.

A wide grin consumed Naruto's face, "It doesn't matter when it happened, as long as you listen to your superiors." This wasn't a normal grin, oh no sir. This was a shit-eat grin that he wore when he knew he had won.

Sasuke's body got more rigid as he bit his tongue to keep from unhinging his jaw. When had Naruto gotten this sarcastic? Before the boy could barely string two words together that weren't profanity or –tebayo. Now he was using Sasuke's words against him in friendly banter. For a fleeting second Sasuke wondered how Naruto would talk to him when they were in a verbal argument. He shook his head slightly and Naruto cheered, he thought it was Sasuke admitting defeat.

"Don't get too ahead of yourself idiot," Sasuke warned putting his middle and index finger against his forehead. "You might hurt yourself."

Naruto stopped his celebration to stick his tongue out at Sasuke and then he zipped his back pack up so that they could go and meet the two teams outside for a good bye.

After convincing the hospital staff to hand over Sasuke's sword Naruto, with his Sasuke-shaped shadow, walked outside to the stony entrance of the hospital. Temari and Shikamaru were looking into each other's eyes as if they were telepathically having a conversation. The fact that both of them would smirk periodically did not help to disprove this theory. Naruto continued to observe the slowly moving crowd of Shinobi. Rock Lee stood close to Gaara, their hands brushing passed the other's every few moments.

Naruto saw this but thought it was purely coincidence and continued to turn his head around, possibly hoping to get a 360 degree view of the group.

"So this is the termination of our mission, correct?" The Kazekage asked. With just those few eloquently spoken words the teams stood behind their first in command and silently listened to the team leaders.

"Yes, that is correct," Kakashi answered with a stern look on his face. It wasn't warm, but it wasn't cold either. It was official and made him look like he wasn't one to be toyed with.

"Then we shall return to Suna and draw up the official mission reports and send them to you via Hawk," Gaara continued with his eyes narrowed in a natural look of superiority.

"Of course Kazekage-sama. As we shall send our reports to you as well," the sensei replied nodding slightly as he began.

Gaara held his hand out in a gesture of goodbye, "I hope that our alliance will continue to grow stronger."

Kakashi took his hand and squeezed it to show his strong standing will, "Of course, Konoha would not have it any other way."

Gaara and Kakashi broke their handshake and turned to their teams, Kakashi's only visible eye silently telling them to cut their goodbyes short. Rock Lee walked over the invisible line that divided the different village ninjas from each other. Shikamaru followed Lee but with a more lazy posture and carefree look on his face. Kakashi motioned for his forces to start the journey back home. They had a long journey ahead of them. This time there was no rest stop half way between, a one shot trek.

Naruto glanced behind him and saw Rock Lee devouring Gaara's face practically. He coughed and stumbled slightly in his step. Sasuke turned an indifferent face to Naruto.

"Look," Naruto pointed behind them and watched as Sasuke's face paled slightly.

"How long do you think they've been together?" the blond asked as he tried to focus on the road ahead.

He knew that Sasuke wouldn't talk when they got outside the hospital room, so it was pointless to ask him questions. But Naruto would rather fill the silence by himself than have the uncomfortable silence sit and taunt him.

Before they knew it the team was bounding through the forest that divided the Rain country from Konoha. The feeling of déjà vu plagued Naruto like a naughty thought in the middle of a mission debriefing. Despite a few tweaks to the formation they had used to get from point A to point B it was pretty much the same. The feeling of too much familiarity was a hard one to purge from his system. Naruto shook his head, hoping that he could shake the sense of 'been there' and 'seen that', as if he could.

Then Kiba pulled forward a little bit more, "You know Naruto…"

With those few words his head began to spin. He swallowed the brick that rested in his throat and nodded.

"This trip seems a lot shorter going back…" Kiba commented as Naruto's poor heart gave a steady throb of relief.

"I know what you mean," he said grateful for the conversation to be devoid of Sasuke. That would have been too creepy and Naruto wasn't too sure that his heart would have throbbed again.

Kiba didn't say much else, the feeling of dark eyes watching your every move unnerved him slightly. But only slightly. Those tweaks were put between Naruto and Sakura. Sasuke was stuck between his two former teammates and next to Chouji, who hadn't taken him out of his peripheral vision since they set out.

Sasuke almost sighed, though he deserved it, he felt like a prisoner walking that long mile to his death.

Kakashi motioned for his troops to drop down as their target, Konoha, came into sight. The team gathered around him and awaited what oh-so-insightful or useful talk was needed just kilometers away from their beloved village.

"Okay, I think you all should know this," Kakashi began as he rested his hands on his thighs. "I don't think that the ANBU guards on duty know that we're coming through, so with an S-class missing Nin in our company they are probably going to try to arrest us."

Everyone looked confused, was their mission so secret it had been kept from even the ANBU? Naruto suddenly felt his ego inflate ten-fold with this prospect. Sakura, seeing the ever-widening grin of her teammate thwacked him in his head to bring him back from Naru-land. The darkness of the already dead day made it nearly impossible to see anyone's face. Outlines were all they could see even at their close proximities.

"Do not fight them," Kakashi instructed looking around the group despite their hidden visages. "We will not be detained for long once Tsunade-sama finds out that her ANBU imprisoned her team," he let a low laugh escape as he imagined her fury when she saw them in prison. "Not to mention if we fight back Tsunade-sama could leave us in there for causing a disturbance," he added a sigh to the end of his explanation.

The forces nodded and each of them stood up slowly and began to walk closer to the gates that would ultimately damn one in their midst. Naruto stole a glance at Sasuke, was this really the end of what they had shared? Would Sasuke be taken away from him once more?

Naruto didn't have much time to ponder these thoughts, as soon as they stepped over the line that separated forest scenery from the peaceful village they were all put into holds that made them submit to the ANBU forces that held them. Needless to say the elites were quite confused when every last ninja just sort of dropped as they guided them to the ground. Everyone had braced themselves for this, so their impassive faces were expected by Kakashi, just not by the guards.

One of the masked men reached for some rope to tie up Sasuke's wrists, but before he could touch the metal clasp of his pouch the sound of wooden sandals hitting the dirt ground at an alarming pace stopped him.

"LET GO OF THEM!!!" Tsunade hollered over the quiet section of the village. Sometimes she went a little bit over on her commands.

The masked faces showed no hints of confusion on their porcelain surfaces but the hushed whispers and looks around the area was plenty for the ninjas in detainment to know that this whole mix up had made their heads hurt worse than dealing with genin all day. They continued to look around, perhaps they were on film (oh you've been punk'd!), but made no motion to say that they intended to let go of the team in their possession. As Tsunade ran closer and closer the lines of frustration were evident on her face. She no longer looked like the paper work hating, somewhat light-hearted Hokage who everyone knew and loved. She looked mad, no furious, and even more sleep deprived than when Naruto saw her last (if that was at all possible).

"Didn't you hear me?!" She screamed as her temper swelled, flared and frayed at the edges.

The one with a strong, somewhat painful, hold on Sasuke attempted to answer, "Yes, b-but he's an S-class missing ninja." Even those trained to not strain under pressure caved in, creased and folded themselves into a neat little envelope under her anger.

Tsunade's face deepened in the red hue, "I told you to let them go! What part of that did you NOT understand?! What my ninjas do and who they bring back is my business and my business alone!"

All at once the ANBU squad let their holds fall apart on the teenaged ninjas. Tsunade took a deep breath in to keep herself from snapping at the ninjas she just saved from incarceration. She fixed her hair and gestured for the mix of genin, chunin and jounin ranks to follow her the rest of the way through the gates. Tsunade led everyone to the heart of the village, Hokage Tower. Her tired eyes showing that a mission report could squeak by late, that everyone could wait for their payment until the morning.

"Everyone except Kakashi, Sakura, Naruto and Sasuke can go home now. Your payment will be drawn up in the morning. Just don't come before 11 o'clock I won't be awake," Tsunade instructed as the rest of the team either verbally said their goodbyes or let them be implied by the way their eyes met hesitantly.

Soon the five of them were standing alone outside the oak doors that led to the Hokage's office. The Legend pushed the door open and motioned for her ninjas to follow her once more. Each member of the former cell was juts as confused as those ANBU back at the gate but they said nothing as they ventured through the darkness of the stairwell. The walk was so short that no one was worn down when Tsunade unlocked the door that led to the floor where her office and a few other rooms resided.

They were taken into the room that seemed to have a pivotal effect on Naruto's life, the Hokage's office. As they all filed into the room they were greeted with the sight of Shizune nuzzling Tonton's wet nose. She was far too busy to notice any new additions to the room. Tsunade smiled affectionately into the darkness before letting a small cough echo through the room.

With a cute "Oh!" Shizune turned to face the new occupants, "I'm terribly sorry Tsunade-sama. I will go finish the preparations now!"

She bowed and gave Tsunade a sweet smile before scurrying out of sight. There was no elaboration offered to what used to be Team 7 from either the cute assistant or assertive Hokage.

"When Shizune comes back she will show you to where you will sleep tonight," Tsunade finally said as she walked to her desk to await her assistant's re-entry into the room.

"Why are we staying the night here?" Kakashi asked not bothering with formalities. It was far too late at night to even think of rank, suffixes or proper sentence structure.

Tsunade let out an exasperated sigh, "Do you want 'Because I said so', or a real reason?" Needless to say high strung ninjas, nights of little sleep, straight through travels and sarcastic natures was a deadly, catastrophic mixture. It really should be written somewhere that it's not allowed.

Kakashi was beginning to show signs of frustration and a general pissy-ness that could only be brought forth by snobby attitudes and restless nights.

"I need you four to be here first thing in the morning so that we can go over some things I've prepared while you were gone," Tsunade explained much to her pride's disappointment. She let her full weight hit the cushiony chair below her a second before a knock sounded from the door.

"Come with me Team 7," Shizune beckoned with a tired voice. "I am done preparing for your stay."

With that the four ninjas followed yet another woman to yet another more complicated piece of the puzzle.

End of Something Irrational

A/N: Okay I have a little treat for you to go with the bad news...I made a video for this story but if you really read into the video there are spoilers to this story. -.-; because I couldn't help myself. Now for the bad news...I lost my hand written copy of chapter 6. I will look for it. But if I don't find it I'll try to re-write it from memory.

Stories (SasuNaru) - IsuzuForever. That's where you'll find it! . Hope you like it!

Preview of Next chapter: "Sasuke..." Naruto shook him slightly and kept his voice below a whisper. Sasuke opened his eyes a slit and looked at Naruto, "What is it?" Naruto seemed nervous, his hands were busy with his hair, the other hand or Sasuke's blanket, they just couldn't stay still. "Can I sleep with you tonight?"