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Chapter 20: Cool Down
Together, the five members proved more than a match for all of their untrained opponents. Slowly but surely, their numbers decreased until only one man was left standing. Naruto quickly incapacitated the man, catching him as he fell to the ground. He smiled in satisfaction.
"He'll prove useful for any other leads involving the exchange of illegal drugs." It was then that he noticed the four other members looking oddly at him, or rather, at the object behind him.
"What is it?" Sasuke pointed.
"Naruto…you should turn around." The blond obeyed, gasping sharply as he witnessed the fallen body of his redheaded friend. Dropping the man, he leapt to his comrade, kneeling beside him.
"Gaara! Gaara, wake up!" There was no response from the fallen spy.
"Gaara! No, Gaara, you can't die now,"
Naruto wept and clutched Gaara's head in his arms, cradling it gently. Silence met his call for his friend. Slight fingers found their way to Gaara's turtleneck, pulling down the cloth and checking for the pulse. It was a long time before he found one, and even then it was erratic and faint. Whirling, he turned to Kabuto.
"Quickly, you must pulse on his chest as I blow into his mouth."
Kabuto flew to Gaara's side, placing both hands on the redhead's torso. Tilting his head back and covering his nose, Naruto lowered his lips to the spy's and blew forcefully into his mouth as Kabuto pulsed. This continued for a period of three repetitions before the redhead hacked and spit out a fair amount of blood. Without saying a word, Naruto gathered the spy gently in his arms and ran lightly to the car, Sasuke dragging along the comatose body of their captive. The four piled quickly into the vehicle and roared off into the night, their destination the Hyuuga mansion.
Back at Neji's House
Naruto gently laid the comatose form of his companion among the soft folds of Sasuke's bed, careful not to jar the fragile wounds on his body. Disappearing for a couple of minutes, he instructed Neji, Sasuke, and Kabuto to keep an eye out on the fallen spy. He emerged later with two steaming kettles, what looked like enough wrappings to successfully toilet-paper the Hyuuga mansion thrice, and an armful of various salves, creams, and other paraphernalia. Teetering slightly due to the extreme weight of his materials, the blond set them down with a clunk on the bedside table, flexing his arms to rid them of the weight. Neji, Sasuke, and Kabuto just gaped.
"Sorry…I didn't know how much stuff to bring…." Naruto rubbed his head sheepishly.
"Baka." Naruto stuck his tongue out at the smirking Uchiha.
"Shut up, Sasuke-teme." Kabuto smiled genially.
"Now now, we mustn't fight…."
Huffing indignantly, Naruto proceeded to tear away Gaara's skin-tight clothing to expose his torso, recoiling slightly from the putrid smell of the dried blood. Pouring the boiling water from the first kettle into a basin, the blond dipped long strips of wrapping into the water, lifting it out and positioning it over Gaara's chest. He shot an apprehensive glance at Neji.
"Could you hold him down, please? The application of these strips isn't a pleasant experience, but I have to remove any toxins from his blood. He normally accepts pain without moving, but now that he's unconscious, it will be purely instinct; he'll try to break away."
The Hyuuga nodded and glided over to the redhead, pinning him by the wrists and planting his knees firmly on Gaara's thighs. He nodded. Wincing, the blond hesitantly lowered the moist bandaging onto Gaara's wounds, touching the gashes lightly before suddenly pressing down, tearing it away almost immediately with yellow and red residue staining the bandage.
Gaara gave a mighty bound at the feel of the foreign strip on his chest and thrashed wildly, but Neji hadn't been dedicating several hours of his day to training for nothing. The Hyuuga managed to subdue the quivering spy, biting down on his lip with the tremendous effort it took to restrain the redhead. Gaara bucked once more before settling. The process repeated itself several times until only blood tainted the strips of bandaging Naruto applied. Letting out a sound of satisfaction, the blond quickly rubbed salve on Gaara's chest, soundly wrapping the wounds afterwards. Gaara cracked open an eye and surveyed Naruto with a painful look in his emerald orbs.
"What…."
Naruto touched a finger to the spy's lips and poured a solution from the second kettle into a cup. Adding a few spices and herbs, the blond mixed the solution until it turned a muddy brown, handing it to Gaara. The redhead sniffed cautiously at the tea, wrinkling his nose at the putrid odor emanating from the tea. Sasuke, Neji, and Kabuto gagged in the background; Naruto grinned apologetically. Gaara sighed and turned to the blond, clutching the glutinous solution in his hands.
"What have I ever done to you?" Naruto smiled wryly.
"Sorry….but Tsunade-baachan insists that you drink this to heal yourself." Gaara contorted his features as he eyed the thick, gooey, brown goop with utter distaste.
"If you pinch your nose, it won't be as bad." Naruto offered helpfully.
Sending a look of profound ire towards the blond, Gaara tilted back his head and downed the solution in one go. He immediately gagged and choked; the goo got stuck in his throat and it took several tries to force it down; even then, it left an extremely bitter aftertaste, and worse, a layer of grit on his tongue that he just couldn't remove. Coughing harshly, he snatched the cup of water Naruto handed him and gulped it hastily, trying to wash away the remaining debris from the medicine. The Uchiha, the Hyuuga, and the Yakushi looked on sympathetically. Gaara hacked and choked for a good three minutes before looking up at Naruto, his eyes watering.
"What the fuck did you put in that drink?" Naruto grinned.
"It wasn't me; Tsunade-baachan mixed it herself with help from Shizune. But I did overhear them saying something about toilet water…." He trailed off and giggled at the horrified look on Gaara's countenance.
"The way it tasted, I think toilet water would've made it more bearable…." The redhead sighed and lay back down on the pillows. A long silence passed.
"Gaara," Sasuke started. The redhead turned his emerald-chip eyes on the onyx-haired youth.
"Now that you've killed your uncle and your father—your main goal, I suspect—where will you go?" Gaara turned away.
"Yeah, where will you go? After all, you have no permanent place; at least you didn't the last time I checked." Naruto chimed in. The redhead sighed, running a hand through his tousled locks.
"I may roam far….or wander near…." He trailed off. Naruto sat forward.
"But I don't want you to go! Life gets a lot more interesting when you're around." Gaara smiled wryly.
"Coming from you, I don't think that's a compliment." Naruto pouted.
"But life gets so much more dangerous with you constantly skulking around." The redhead smirked.
"I can't stay in one place, Naruto. Given my reputation as a spy, I've got dangerous individuals hunting me down. If they ever get wind that I'm staying here, they'll surely raid this place, and maybe harming you in the process. You're the reason I stay alive, Naruto, the reason I continue to live." At Naruto's stunned face, the redhead laughed softly.
"I don't mean it in that way, you moron. It's just that you're the only one I have, the only one remotely close to me, the only one I can fully trust, and coming from a half-mad paranoid spy, that's not just a compliment." Gaara retained a faraway, almost nostalgic look in his eyes.
"Perhaps it's because we've known each other since…oh…five years of age? You were the only one not to push me away like all the other people. If I hadn't met you, I'd have gotten myself killed a long time ago in some rash mission, or ended my life after I disposed of my father and uncle." He looked up to see Naruto's eyes watering and made a slight sound of irritation.
"Stop with the waterfalls, kitten. You know I'll still be around." Naruto nodded and swiped at his tears with annoyance.
"If we've quite finished," Sasuke's rather sharp tone snapped the two out of their trance. Gaara instantly hitched on his mask of indifference while Naruto grinned sheepishly at the Uchiha.
"Heheh…sorry…it's just that Gaara and I have known each other for so long…" Sasuke didn't look amused.
"I swear Naruto, sometimes I wonder why you weren't born a girl. You're more fickle than Sakura."
The blond stiffened. The temperature, normally warm and welcoming, suddenly crashed through seven degrees of icy frostiness, coming to a halt at levels of coldness that would've made ice crystals out of magma in less than a second. Slowly Naruto turned around, frozen chips of frigid blue shooting from his eyes, cleanly running the Uchiha through. Neji bowed his head; there was absolutely no hope for the poor sap now, god save his pitiful soul. Gaara instinctively pulled up the covers around his body, though they did little good; when Naruto got like that, the best way was to wait it out and wince as the unsuspecting sap was demolished beyond the point of existence. Sasuke eeped and visibly shrunk, cowering at the frozen fire the blond was emanating. Each word Naruto spoke was extremely painful, both physically and mentally, on the poor Uchiha.
"Dare. You. Compare. Me. To. That. Female?" The words dropped like chips of extremely sharp steel, further wounding the Uchiha. He swore, when he was through with the Uchiha, nothing would be left of the youth save a discolored splotch on Neji's walls. Sasuke shielded his face with his arms, cowering in fright.
"Uhm….my apologies?" This only intensified Naruto's stare. Sasuke gulped and hurriedly spoke in a last-ditch attempt to calm the blond.
"But-but you did save her life, didn't you? You were the one who fell thirty-two stories and fractured both your legs in sixty-seven different places to save her, right?" Naruto moved slowly towards the Uchiha who managed to work up enough courage to stare the blond directly in his eyes. When Naruto spoke again, his words were laced with murder, spoken in a slow, ominous pace.
"Why I did so will forever perplex me—perhaps it is the fact that I detest suicide no matter who did it—but now that I look back, I should've left Sakura to die, now that I know what she's done." All of a sudden, the blond broke out in a grin, causing everyone in the room (particularly Sasuke) to let out a breath they didn't know they were holding.
"Just kidding. Man, I can't believe you actually fell for that." He snickered while the rest of the occupants in the room had looks of relief and chagrin smeared on their faces.
"Actually, I'm rather relieved I saved Sakura; instant, painless death was too easy, and Gaara made sure hers was prolonged and painful." Gaara nodded.
"Actually it wasn't me who did it; I have my connections, you know. I much rather prefer a clean kill." Naruto tapped a finger thoughtfully on his chin.
"Kankurou?" Gaara chuckled wryly.
"Of course not; he prefers work that doesn't require a lot of movement. Or work that requires no movement at all." Naruto grinned.
"Ummm…."
"Don't try to guess, you'll wear yourself out by thinking." Naruto frowned and turned to Kabuto.
"Kabuto?" The silver-haired man laughed and gently shook his head.
"Oh no, I cannot disclose any information." Brows knotted together even more as the blond's frown deepened.
"Please?"
"No."
"Pretty please?"
"I said no."
"Pretty please with a three-hundred and fifty gigabyte external hard drive complete with a separate operating system, boosted CPU usage and upgraded ram?"
Kabuto twitched. The offer didn't sound half bad. He briefly entertained the idea of refusing bluntly, but one didn't get a three-hundred and fifty gigabyte external hard drive complete with a separate operating system, boosted CPU usage and upgraded ram for free in these crazy days. Quivering slightly, he slumped forward, taking off his spectacles and massaging his temples in slow, circular motions.
"Very well."
Naruto squealed and bounded into his lap, thrusting a small device into Kabuto's eager hands before bobbing happily up and down. Kabuto blushed and patted him awkwardly on the head before starting up his laptop and typing in a complicated series of passwords. A screen came up with various profiles and pictures. He touched the pad of one long, slender finger to a picture. The picture grew, magnifying in size until it revealed a dashing young man that looked astoundingly similar to Sasuke. Flicking a cautious glance at the Uchiha, Kabuto lowered his voice a couple of octaves and bent, speaking right next to Naruto's ear. The blond giggled softly; Kabuto's breath was rather ticklish.
"This is Uchiha Itachi, Sasuke's older brother and one of Gaara's associates, and the best man for interrogation. He works with Morino Ibiki,"—here, Kabuto pressed another button and a second profile came up, this one showing a man sporting several scars across his countenance—"a genius at psychological manipulation." Naruto "oohed" at the two pictures of the men.
"You said he was Sasuke's—" Kabuto put a finger to his lips, looking scandalized.
"Shh. Sasuke doesn't react well to his brother's presence; an old grudge formed by a vendetta they had years ago." Naruto looked sheepish.
"Sorry." He reached up and leaned back against the man, positioning his lips next to Kabuto's ear.
"So you said he was Sasuke's brother?" Kabuto nodded, his chin digging into Naruto's shoulder.
"Yes, and he's coming here to disclose any other useful information he managed to extract from Sakura. You see, they were halfway through the interrogation when we went to stop the drug-ring; now we shall get the other half of the information." Naruto's eyes widened in awe.
"But Sasuke won't react well to Itachi….so will he do anything drastic if he lays eyes on him?" Kabuto shot another glance at the Uchiha; Sasuke was fixing Naruto with a slightly curious gaze. Naruto hitched on a smile and waved the raven-haired youth away with a reassuring smile. Kabuto smiled as well before speaking softly.
"Sasuke has enough dignity not to attack his brother in front of an audience. He most probably will react coldly to his brother's presence, but he won't resort to physical means." The silver-haired man smiled, onyx eyes glinting bemusedly.
"Believe me, I've served his family for many generations." Naruto frowned playfully.
"You're not that old, though your hair states otherwise." Kabuto chuckled.
"If you say so." He wrapped his arms around the blond, giving him a playful hug before gently shoving him off of his lap.
"Run along now; we don't want your lovers to act up, for I do find quite an attachment to my head and my life." Naruto huffed.
"But you're my friend." Kabuto smiled mildly.
"True. But we don't want to find out just how murderous those two can be lest they suspect me of claiming you as my own, even though you were the one who made the advances." With another indignant exhale of breath, Naruto turned away. The corner of his mouth raised amusedly as Kabuto observed the defiant posture of the blond. He really was quite adorable when irked. Sasuke looked up to see Naruto coming towards him.
"What did the old man want?" Naruto looked up at the Uchiha, fire in his eyes.
"He's not old, it's just his hair. He said that two colleagues of Gaara will be coming here to brief us on Sakura's status. It's not another mission though, we just have to listen. We might find out about her past. I admit I have been curious." Sasuke smiled.
"If you wish." He started to turn.
"Sasuke?"
"Yes?" Naruto looked down, fidgeting slightly and playing with his fingers.
"Nothing." The Uchiha shrugged, not wishing to press the boy.
A soft snap was heard and the five looked up to witness Kiba entering the room. Winking mischievously at Naruto Kiba bowed shortly and addressed his audience.
"Hiashi-sama requests that all five of you be present in his study." He bowed again and stepped to the side as Neji (supporting Gaara), Sasuke, and Kabuto walked past him. Naruto lingered back to speak with the Inuzuka.
"How've things been since our absence?" Kiba shrugged.
"Normal. Shizune's still cooking, and Tsunade's still healing and I'm still slogging away in the kennels." He wrapped his arms around the blond and squeezed. Naruto returned the hug, feeling the familiar rush of camaraderie.
"It's good to see you again, Naruto." The blond grinned.
"Likewise." He quickly briefed the dog-boy on the details of the mission. Kiba smirked when Naruto revealed Sakura's true façade.
"I always thought I smelled a rat." Naruto grinned.
"I'm going to be late for the meeting. I'll meet you later in our room; I have a little something waiting for you." Kiba's eyes lit up with an eager glimmer but he waved off the blond.
"See you later." Naruto waved back and departed.
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