Chapter 7: Deal with it.

Tsunade:

The halls were quiet and Shizune could hear the echo of her own footsteps as she walked towards the office door. She repositioned the paper files in her arms as she knocked on the door.

"Lady Tsunade." She called out softly. No reply came. Slowly she pushed open the door. The room was dark inside; all the curtains were pulled shut to prevent any of the morning sun from entering the office. Stepping inside she saw the hokage at her desk. She was laying face down on her arms, surrounded by large stacks of paperwork.

"Lady Tsunade." Shizune called out louder this time.

"Huh, what?" Tsunade groaned as she slightly lifted her head. "What do you want?" She asked wiping the sleep from her eyes.

"I just came to give you these." Shizune carefully placed the files she had been carrying on top of one of the other towering stacks that covered the wooden desk. Walking over to the window she pulled open the curtains, allowing some of the bright morning sunlight to flood in from outside.

Tsunade let out another groan as she shielded her eyes from the sudden change of light. "Shizune, close the curtains please. You're giving me a headache."

"Lady Tsunade you should really start working on these." Shizune revered to the paperwork as she ignored the hokage's complaints. Tsunade just sat there, shielding her eyes with one hand and rubbing the side of her head with the other. Shizune started walking around the office arranging some of the files. As she was throwing away some empty envelopes she noticed a bottle lying at the bottom of the dustbin. Picking it up, she could read the label: "Dragon-Fire Spirits".

"Did you drink this entire bottle?!" Shizune asked shocked as she walked over to Tsunade and showed her the empty bottle of strong spirits. If she had been drinking that it would be on surprise that she had a headache.

"I'm not sure, can you please lower your voice. It sounds like you're shouting." Shizune's loud voice was only worsening the pain in her head.

"You can't do this Lady Tsunade. You can't just stay in here for the rest of your life, sleeping or drinking all the time and not doing any work."

"Shizune, lower your voice please." The headache was now turning into a full out attack from the tiny alcohol chemicals.

Shizune slammed her open palms on the desk out of frustration, the impact causing one of the paper mountains to topple over and spread its contents all over the office floor.

"Lady Tsunade, I know this is a hard time for you. I can understand that you just want to be left alone right now, but this time you can't. If something like this had happened a year ago I would have fully understood if you reacted like this, but back then it was only you, Tonton and me. We only had to take care of ourselves. Back then you weren't the Hokage and you didn't have the entire hidden leaf village depending on you."

Tsunade lowered the hand that's been shielding her eyes. She glared at Shizune, a mixture of anger and sadness bubbling up inside of her.

"You think you know how I feel? You think you understand what I'm going through? You have no idea" Shizune stared at her, an almost hurt look on her face.

"If you don't want to listen, then fine work through this yourself." She turned to leave but stopped in the doorway. "And I do know. You're not the only one who cared for them. Remember that."

She didn't even turn to face Tsunade. Having said that she walked out of the office and softly closed the door behind her, leaving the Hokage to think things through by herself.

Sakura:

The water flowed peacefully below her as Sakura gazed over the edge of the bridge. Nothing much has happened in the past few days. The storm, which had probably been the worst they had experienced in years, had prevented anybody from leaving their homes. And now that it had finally blown over and she was able to escape the lonely imprisonment of her own home, there wasn't anybody she could talk to. Most of the others have left early to start with their training. Even Hinata had been seen heading towards the training grounds. The only person that hadn't left aside for Sakura was Ino and she wasn't exactly the person she was hoping to talk to. She sighed inwardly, lifted her head off her hands and started walking towards the shopping district.

She looked at almost every stall with interest. Each was different; some sold beautiful and strange pieces of art while others would lure you to them with the smell of their food. She stopped as her eyes came to rest on a certain ramen stall. In her mind she could almost see the legs of a bright orange jumpsuit sticking out from beneath the top curtains. She shook her head, dismissing the thought. Taking a deep breath she walked towards the stall. As she ducked under the top curtains her nose caught the scent of fresh ramen. She had never actually seen the inside of the stall. It was quite small, basically a counter, some seats and a kitchen in the back.

"Hi, would you like to order something?" Ayame asked with a smile from behind the counter. Sakura thought for a moment.

"Why not?" She asked herself as she took a seat.

Sasuke:

Sasuke was nearly out of breath as he watched another shuriken meet its target. The circle drawn on the tree was rapidly filling with shuriken, kunai knives and other small weapons. He took out another shuriken, aimed and threw it at the target with shocking accuracy and a sudden surge of anger. It struck the tree with great force, half entering the wooden structure before coming to a stop. He took in deep breathes and his arm felt exhausted. Yet he took out another knife and shot it at the circle on the tree.

He didn't know how long he had been out there already, and he didn't care. He preferred the solitude. Out there nobody was around to bother him. Out there e could be left alone with his thoughts.

"Why?!" He suddenly yelled out mentally. "Why did you have to be so careless, you stupid LOSER!" He launched another kunai at the tree. "Couldn't you have taken care of yourself just for once?"

Anger rose up inside of him like a raging fire. Anger and hatred. He was shocked to find that he had a hatred for Naruto. He hated him for dieing, he hated him for leaving them behind. But more than anything else, he hated himself for not being able to do anything about it.

Kakashi:

Not much has changed about Kakashi. Only difference about him was that he had been visiting the memorial stone more frequently. As he stared at the stone on this particular morning he sighed. He was still slightly shocked that Naruto hadn't turned up. To be honest he truly did come to believe that he would show up on his own, but with every passing day that small glimmer of hope faded more and more. "He always was a fighter." He thought with some hope. "But is seems this time the fight wasn't his to win."

Hi. Sorry about the fact that this chapter is so short and that I didn't have a lot to say about Kakashi. Thanks to all of those who helped me with their reviews. You would notice I tried something new with the way they speak (A tip from Skuares and Cloud Ex-SOLDIER, hope it's easier to read now). Also thanks to TREX19990 for showing me some of my grammar problems (I'll fix those soon). And finally special thanks to Slop The 3rd for all your help. =)