Greetings! It's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry about that, but I decided to go back to school to get my Master's degree, and that, combined with my crazy work schedule, left no room for anything else. I'm done with the semester now, so I have free time again.

I have to admit that I've worked on this story so sporadically that I've lost the original intention for it. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure where it's going to go now. There is a second part to this, which I really want to write, but I can't get to that until this one is resolved. Well, it's more of a story based on this universe and not necessarily a continuation of the events in this one, but either way, this one needs to get done.

I also have every intention of looking for a beta for this story, now that ff dot net has that nifty beta finder feature. It would take some of the pressure off of me to have someone else take a look at the chapters before I make them public.

Anyway, I'm hoping I still have an audience. Thanks to those of you who've reviewed and have put the story on your favorites list. It's the only way I have to know that people are still reading.

Enjoy

5/11/08

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Chapter 13: Calm

They made it back to the village shortly after dawn. Naruto had every intention of going straight to the hospital to check on his friends, but Jiraiya had other ideas.

"Tsunade wants to see you before you go to the hospital," the white-haired ninja said when he caught up to Naruto at the gates.

"It's early and she's not in the office yet," Naruto said. "By the time I check on Sakura and Sasuke, the old lady will have made it to her office and I can talk to her then."

Jiraiya shook his head.

"You will go to her house and talk to her right now, young man," Jiraiya said, and Naruto momentarily felt like five-year-old. "I'll take Kakashi to the hospital from here."

Kakashi's closed eyes and slumped shoulders spoke volumes to the older ninja's condition, and it would do the man no good for Naruto to continue to argue with Jiraiya when Kakashi needed a doctor.

"Fine," Naruto said, putting as much sarcasm into the word as he could. "If she gets mad because I woke her up, I'm going to blame you."

"I think you've already done plenty to earn her ire," Jiraiya countered. "Now get going."

Jiraiya and Kakashi took off towards the hospital, and Naruto stood by the gates looking in the direction they'd gone long after they'd vanished from sight. He was really not looking forward to facing Tsunade, even though he knew that he deserved everything she could possibly say or do to him. He'd made the decision to leave the village knowing full well what the consequences could be, and even if he did end up losing his job for good, it had been worth it just to have helped Kakashi return in one piece.

The Hokage's house was not very far from the tower where she worked. Jiraiya had told him where it was a few years ago, but Naruto had never been invited inside. He felt a bit nervous visiting the Hokage in such a personal setting now, and the fact that she wanted to see him badly enough to see him at her house made Naruto's insides clench in anticipation of the lecture he was sure to get. Naruto had been on the receiving end of her temper plenty of times before, but he had a feeling that it was going to be much worse this time.

Naruto raised his fist to knock on the door of the two-story house, but it was yanked open before he could touch it. Tsunade, dressed in a night gown and robe with her hair down from the usual twin ponytails, grabbed the front of his jacket and pulled him inside. She slammed the door behind him and pushed him into the somewhat messy living area. Tsunade sat on one of the chairs and pointed at a small couch next to the window.

Naruto sat stiffly where he'd been told and studied the room. Crammed bookshelves full of medical texts lined two of the walls, interspersed every now and then with framed photographs of people Naruto didn't know. A fire was going in the fireplace, and the crackling of the logs as they burned was the only sound in the room.

"I should have you fired for this little stunt," Tsunade finally said.

Naruto finally met her eyes and the disappointment he saw in them, along with the softly spoken statement, made Naruto wish that she'd go into one of her tirades and scream at him instead. He could deal with her anger; he didn't know how to deal with her disappointment.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" she added when he remained silent.

"I wanted to help," Naruto finally said. "I did end up helping Kakashi," he added, but his words seem to only make her angrier.

"We have rules for a reason, Naruto."

Naruto's jaw tightened. "No, you have rules for me and then you have rules for everyone else," he snapped. "Because I carry the stupid fox, you want to keep me in the village as much as you can to keep an eye on me."

"You were suspended!" Tsunade finally yelled. "You know that the council and I clash over how tight a leash to keep you on more often than not. I'm the biggest supporter of you being allowed as much freedom as the other ninja of this village, but that stops when I've given you specific instructions not to take on any missions or leave the village. You had broken yet another one my rules, which you were being punished for. You do remember that don't you?"

Naruto breathed slowly through his nose in an attempt to quell the anger that was bubbling up through him. Every argument he'd had with Tsunade about the council's limitations on his missions and the freedom he was allowed was going through his head, and even though he believed that Tsunade had his best interests at heart, the fact that there even needed to be an argument still grated on his nerves.

"Answer me when I ask you a question," Tsunade said.

"Yes, I remember," Naruto said through clenched teeth.

This was getting him nowhere. Tsunade was right to be angry at him and his anger at the situation was not going to help. If he valued his career, then he'd be better off not angering his boss any further.

"I'm sorry," he said after some thought. "I disobeyed an order. Whatever reasons I had for leaving were no excuse for doing it."

Naruto met her eyes and hoped that the Hokage could see the sincerity of the statement in his eyes. He valued her as more than just his boss; she was like the sister he never had, and he didn't want his recklessness and impulsiveness get in the way of that.

Tsunade sighed. "What am I going to do with you, Naruto? You live by your own set of rules, which is sometimes beneficial to you and the village, but you also need to learn to play the system. It won't always work for you, but you'll have a better chance of manipulating it to what you want if you at least understand it."

"I'm a ninja, not a politician," Naruto replied, as he had every other time this particular topic had come up.

"You'll have to be if you want to become Hokage," Tsunade said.

It took a bit for that to sink in. "So you're not firing me?" Naruto asked.

"I should," Tsunade said, "but I can't afford to lose any more ninja right now, and you're a damned good one. I want you to stay in the village and not go after Kabuto. Jiraiya told me of your reluctance to return, but you will leave the traitor to Ibiki and Jiraiya. Understood?"

"Yes," Naruto replied, though he was not entirely happy about the deal. "I won't go after him."

"Good," Tsunade said. "We'll be preparing for an invasion, so as of right now you and Sakura are both back on duty. As soon as she's released from the hospital, come by my office for your orders."

Naruto nodded and stood. "Thank you Hokage-sama," Naruto said as he passed her.

Tsunade cringed. "Somehow, the title sounds horrible coming out of your mouth."

Naruto smiled at her. "You're always complaining that I don't address you properly and when I do, you don't like it?"

Tsunade smiled back. "Hokage's prerogative."

She got up and led him to the door. "Tell Sakura and Sasuke that I'll stop by to check on them in a couple of hours." She closed the door behind him, leaving Naruto alone on the porch.

Tsunade was a decent woman, and a damned good Hokage, even if she did tend to be over protective every once in a while. Still, it was better to have her on his side, Naruto thought as he made his way to the hospital.

Naruto decided to avoid the hassle of dealing with the hospital staff and instead let himself into the building through a second story window that had been left unlocked. He headed for the section of the hospital where he'd recovered after his attack and didn't have to look long before he found the room Sakura and Sasuke were in.

He let himself in without knocking and was surprised to find Inoue-san already there. The older man was in deep conversation with Sakura, who was giggling at whatever the man had said. Sasuke was turned away from them, staring out of the open window. In the minute before he was noticed, Naruto took in his friend's appearance: Sakura was pale and wrapped up in a blanket, but was sitting up in bed and seemed to be enjoying her conversation with Inoue-san. Sasuke looked tense and bruised, but not as guarded as Naruto had last seen him. In other words, Sasuke didn't look like he'd torch anyone who dared approach him. There was an odd calm about the man that made Naruto wonder what had happened to bring about that change in Sasuke.

"Naruto!"

Sakura noticed him first and gave him a big smile. Naruto grinned back and approached her bed first. His grin faded, however, and she punched him in the stomach as soon as he'd gotten close enough.

"You idiot," she yelled. "How dare you leave like that and make us all worry?"

Naruto clutched his now sore stomach and grimaced. "It's good to know you haven't lost your strength, Sakura," he said.

"Don't change the subject," she said. "What you did was idiotic, irresponsible, and selfish. You not only put yourself in danger, but you opened yourself up to another attack. What if Kabuto had found you?"

Naruto looked away from her, knowing that she was right. Up close, Sakura looked tired and he wondered whether he would have been able to do anything for his friends if he'd been around when Kabuto targeted them.

"I'm sorry, Sakura," Naruto said. "I wasn't thinking and I should have been here. If I were, perhaps…"

"I wouldn't say that if I were you," Sasuke interrupted. "She already bit my head off when I wanted to take responsibility for Kabuto."

Naruto turned to Sasuke, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open in surprise. The glint in the Uchiha's dark eyes made Naruto's eyes widen even more. Had Sasuke just teased Sakura? Sasuke looked calmly back, his expression not giving any hints to whatever was going through his head. Naruto then turned back to Sakura, who was blushing slightly. Finally, Naruto looked at Inoue-san, who looked as lost as Naruto felt.

"Inoue-san, these two aren't clones, right?" Naruto asked.

The elder man shook his head. "I don't think so. Sakura-chan and I were having the most interesting conversation about medical herbs before you walked in, while Sasuke-kun over there did his best to ignore us."

Naruto shook his head to clear it of the jumble of thoughts fighting for supremacy. He looked at his two friends one more time and noticed that something was different between them. There was tension, as there always was around Sasuke, but it suddenly wasn't as thick as it had once been.

"Alright," Naruto finally said and glanced at Inoue-san out of the corner of his eye, before meeting both Sakura and Sasuke's eyes. "We will talk about it later, though."

Naruto received two small nods in response.

"I think I'm going to go back to my shop," Inoue-san said. "I'm glad you're all doing well."

With that, the elder man left the room. Naruto stared after him for a while, before turning back to his friends.

"Was it something I said?" he asked.

He took the chair Inoue-san had vacated and filled his former teammates in on what had transpired in Otogakure and what he and Kakashi had found out about the enemy army. Sakura, in turn, told him about her experience with Kabuto. When it came to Sasuke, he gave them a brief account of his encounter with Kabuto, and Naruto knew better than to ask for any details.

"Ibiki, huh?" Naruto said when Sasuke had finished. "He's the last person I would have expected to reach you first."

"I was surprised as well," Sasuke said. "After he accused me of killing the ANBU, I expected him to leave me behind.

Naruto loosened his fists, which had clenched as his friend's tales of their encounters with Kabuto progressed. They clenched once again, however, after Sakura's next question.

"How can Kabuto still be alive?" she asked.

Naruto looked away from her piercing, green stare and focused on the floor instead. It took him a while to control his temper enough so that his voice was calm when he answered.

"I thought I'd killed him," Naruto finally replied. "I clearly remember engaging him first, but then…"

"The fox took over, didn't it?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto looked up at his friend. "How do you know?" he asked.

Sasuke's expression shifted, leaving his face shrouded in darkness for a moment before it passed.

"When I first saw you that day, you weren't yourself," Sasuke said. "You looked the same as you did by the end of the confrontation at the Valley of the End." Sasuke's eyes left him, and Naruto could have sworn that he saw a trace of guilt in the dark eyes before they'd looked away.

The confrontation at the Valley of the End was not something Naruto was willing to get into, so he let it drop.

"I was so angry when I fought Kabuto," Naruto said after some silence, "and it was hard to keep it under control. I wanted him dead, but he has always been just a bit better than me and would dodge everything I threw at him. I finally hit him with a Rasengan and he dropped. I guess I was too concerned with finding Orochimaru that I didn't stop to make sure that he was really dead."

He had been so stupid. What good was he if he couldn't even make sure his enemies were properly dead?

"Kabuto can regenerate his cells Naruto," Sakura said. "That would make killing him very hard. It wasn't your fault."

"I should have made sure," Naruto said, his voice louder than he had intended, which caused Sakura to flinch. "He shouldn't have been able to come back and almost kill you both."

"You had other things on your mind," Sasuke added. "It was understandable. We'll just have to deal with Kabuto now and make sure that he really is dead this time."

Naruto grimaced once again at that. "He'll have to come back to the village in order for me to deal with him," he said. "I've been forbidden from leaving again."

"You're already spoken to Tsunade-sama?" Sakura asked.

"Yes, she made it very clear that I am not to leave the village under any circumstances. This time, I think I'm going to listen."

The tree former teammates lapsed into silence, until Sasuke broke it.

"Kabuto is hell bent on revenge so I'm sure he'll come back to finish the job once he realizes you're back here, and that Sakura and I are still alive, unless someone else kills him first."

"I sure hope not," Naruto said. "I'd love to finish what I started."

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"Were you able to find Kabuto?" Tsunade asked, but could tell from Ibiki's tense posture that the answer would be in the negative.

"I searched the area immediately surrounding the village and found no traces of his entry," Ibiki said, "I concentrated in the area around the Uchiha compound, but did not detect chakra residue or any evidence of a breach in the wall. I expanded my search from there, but there wasn't much to go on and the trail grew cold rather quickly."

"It's possible that Kabuto is behind Kirigakure's sudden interest in Konoha," Tsunade said and told Ibiki what she and Jiraiya had speculated, and what Naruto and Kakashi had been able to discover from their mission.

"We'll need to mobilize all of our available units and meet them before they arrive at the village," Ibiki said once she'd finished speaking. "It may be too late to ask for help, but…"

Tsunade's raised hand silenced him. "I've already reached out to Suna and they've sent word that they're dispatching their own troops to provide support."

"Suna is too far away, Hokage," Ibiki pointed out.

"I agree, but our alliances with the closer nations aren't as strong as ours is with Suna, and their armies are not as strong."

"I understand. What would you like my department to do?" Ibiki asked.

Tsunade quickly explained her plan and watched the man leave. She wasn't in need of his services as an interrogator, but she did need his services as a strategist and gatherer of information. She was sure that he would not disappoint her.

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By the time he was released, Kakashi was ready to spend more than a few hours awake. The nature of his head injury required that, after the initial period of forced wakefulness that Naruto had so kindly watched over as they rushed back to Konoha, he remain unconscious in order for the healers to repair the skull fracture and resulting brain swelling without interference from him. As a result, he'd been unconscious for the better part of two days, and spent the next day in and out of consciousness. He detested being watched over, especially by nosy and meddling medical ninja and had wasted no time vacating his room as soon as he'd been released. He hadn't yet left the hospital, however. He had something to collect before he headed home.

"Yo!" Kakashi said, smiling as the room's occupant turned away from the window he'd been staring out of to face his visitor. The man's black eyes narrowed, but Kakashi was somewhat relieved to see that Sasuke was still relaxed. Well, as relaxed as Sasuke could get..

"They finally let you out," Sasuke commented as Kakashi took the chair closest to Sasuke's bed. Sasuke was alone in the room now, since Sakura had been released the day before.

"Yes, finally," Kakashi replied. "I don't see why they had to keep me here for as long as they did."

"Perhaps it was due to the hole in your head," Sasuke said. "Naruto told us what happened in Oto," Sasuke added. "He said the injury was pretty severe."

"Naruto has a tendency to exaggerate, we both know that."

They lapsed into silence, which Kakashi wasn't too eager to fill. He already knew that Sasuke wasn't going to like what he'd come to tell him and Kakashi had no desire to jump right into it. Unfortunately, Sasuke had other ideas.

"Why are you here, Kakashi? I would have thought you'd head straight home."

"I can't just come visit my recovering ex-student?"

"That excuse might have worked, if I hadn't already been in the hospital for five days," Sasuke replied. "I should have been released long before you."

"I was injured," Kakashi insisted. "I would have come sooner if I could."

Sasuke's words, however, did tug at Kakashi's guilt. Sasuke had been injured and he hadn't been here to at least make sure the young man was recovering. Sasuke still looked pale and rather tired, and the young man's shrug of dismissal of Kakashi's words intensified the guilt a little bit. The proposal Kakashi came with, however, was his way of attempting to redeem many years of neglect on his part.

"I'm afraid I had a little something to do with why you haven't been released," Kakashi said. "I asked the Hokage to keep you here until I was released."

"Why?" Sasuke asked.

"So you could come home with me."

The statement hung in the air like the blade of a guillotine, until Sasuke laughed. The sound was eerie and devoid of any amusement.

"That's funny," Sasuke finally said. "You have a strange sense of humor."

"I'm not joking, Sasuke," Kakashi said. "Your home is still under investigation, considering what happened there. Until such time that the ANBU deem the investigation finished, you are to stay with me."

Sasuke's jaw clenched. "They could have put me in ANBU controlled housing, since they think I'm such a threat. Why did they stick me with you?"

"I realize that you prefer to be alone and deal with your problems alone," Kakashi said, "and being in ANBU controlled housing would provide the perfect opportunity for you to mull over the events of the past few days and sulk in silence. However, that approach has gone on long enough and is no longer an option."

Anger flashed through Sasuke's eyes for a split second before the young man was able to smother it.

"I'm not a dog you can rescue because you feel sorry for it," Sasuke said, "nor am I a child. I'm an adult, and, as I've told you before, I alone am responsible for my actions. How I choose to deal with the aftermath of those actions is my choice and no one else's."

Kakashi wanted to groan in frustration, but resisted the urge. Sasuke's defenses, once raised, would not be easy to penetrate.

"I know that you're not a child, and I don't want to 'rescue' you, as you put it," Kakashi said. "I have an extra room in my house and you're in need of a place to stay. If that arrangement happens to give you an environment where you don't only have yourself and your ghosts for company, then I find it an amicable arrangement."

Sasuke's eyes bore into Kakashi, and the elder ninja couldn't help but think that, at eighteen, Sasuke already had the life experience of a man three times his age.

"I don't have a choice in this, do I?" Sasuke said, resignation just noticeable in his voice.

"No."

Sasuke's shoulders dropped a little bit. No one else would have noticed, but to Kakashi, it was akin to Sasuke accepting defeat. Kakashi wasn't doing this to make Sasuke's life harder, and he had zero experience dealing with traumatized teenagers. However, he was the best choice for Sasuke, and though the teenager would never understand Kakashi's intentions for forcing this on him, he hoped that some good would come of it.

Either that or they'd end up killing each other.

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Reviews are always cherished and appreciated. If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll answer them if I can. Until next time.