The following morning, Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, and Sai were all waiting on Yamato and Kakashi to arrive at their cabin.
"They better hurry up," said Naruto, crossing his arms, "we're going to be late."
"We won't be late, idiot," Sasuke snorted, looking at his watch on his right wrist. "It's only six-fifteen!We still have forty five minutes before we are all supposed to meet. Why did you make us get ready so early anyways?"
"Well if you didn't want to get ready, you didn't have to, moron." Naruto murmured under his breath, looking slightly down and away from Sasuke, as if that would make it harder for him to hear.
Naruto immediately felt a fist grabbing at the collar of his shirt, pulling his body weight up against gravity. "Say that again," Sasuke challenged.
"Uh- I mean- I said- It was-" Naruto tried to recover from his obvious mistake desperately, as Sasuke had one fist raised in the air and the other clenched around the fabric of his shirt.
"Guys, guys!" Sakura pleaded in an attempt to get them to settle down, "there's no need to fight! I'm sure Kakashi and Yamato will be here shortly!" She let out a nervous laugh. That was when both Sasuke and Naruto got knocked to the ground with a grunt of effort.
Sai, standing over the two other boys, looked down and dropped his hands back down to his sides. "You two really are annoying." He sighed over dramatically, and looked up towards the sky, placing his hands on his waist. "I don't want to have to keep cleaning up your mess."
"Ehh?!" Naruto was beginning to get pissed. "How can you say that? No one even notices you!"
"ENOUGH!" Sakura screamed out. A flock of crows somewhere cawed in response to her, and flew out and away from the scene. Everyone, in shock, stared at her.
"I don't want to spend the entirety of our time here having to deal with your nonsense." She closed her eyes tightly. "It's not fair!" She punched the air around her. "It makes me so angry! I just want to have a good time with Sasuke! And Naruto!" She pointed at him and glared, "you keep getting in the way!" Then she turned to glare at Sai. "Sai! You better be nice to my friends!"
"Am I not your friend, then?"
"NO!" was the response from all three. Sai immediately began to sulk.
"I see..."
"What do you see?" rung out a deep, sultry voice.
The kids all stared as Itachi revealed himself from behind one of the cabins. Sasuke's attitude immediately lightened. "Itachi!"
Itachi walked towards Sasuke, smiling gently down at him with sincerity, and patted him softly on the head. "The lot of you are being much too loud so early in the morning. We've gotten a few complaints."
He turned towards his younger brother. "You should know better, Sasuke."
Sasuke looked down in embarrassment. "Sorry..."
Itachi smiled again at Sasuke, and then turned towards the others. "What's going on here?"
Immediately, Naruto popped off with a, "It's Sasuke's fault!" Then Sakura began to defend him.
"No, it's your fault! You made us get up too early!"
Really, they're fighting over being up too early? Itachi frowned to himself. So unlike what I've taught Sasuke...
Itachi cut them both off. "Regardless of who's fault it is, your group is already one of the most dysfunctional to enter the camp grounds. If you don't figure out how to cooperate with each other, I'm afraid you'll be put on suspension from the exams."
Naruto gulped. "Y...yes sir..."
"Hey, Itachi-!" Another voice rang out.
Itachi turned to see Kakashi and Yamato approaching the scene. Kakashi, trying desperately to hide his fatigue, smiled and waved.
"You look like hell." Itachi observed. He looked over Yamato as well. "Both of you."
"Yeah well..." Kakashi began, uncertain of how to answer.
"We just had trouble sleeping, that's all. It should be better tonight now that we are used to the cabin." Yamato completed. Itachi analyzed Yamato's face, and noticed right away the twitch in the corner of his lip as he spoke, indicating that what he had just said was a lie. Kakashi turned to look at Yamato in shock, but also with gratitude. He hoped Yamato could read his eyes.
Itachi didn't bother to call them out. "I hope that's the case." He looked at his watch. "Well, we will be going over the agenda for the rest of the week in twenty minutes. I'm going to head over to the main hall now." Before walking away, he approached Sasuke again. Sasuke looked up, hopeful to gain praise.
"Don't cause any more problems, alright? Mom and Dad didn't die for you to be an ass."
Sasuke couldn't even reply. He lowered his head in disappointment. "Yeah..."
AROUND NOON
"Man, this is stupid," grumbled Naruto. He ran his fingers over the corners of the list he was holding in his hands while walking down the mountain trail. "How are we supposed to find all of these?"
"Well, that's where your schooling comes in. I hope you paid attention. Knowing the difference between a blue berry and a nightshade berry may save your life one day." Kakashi spoke clearly, forcing himself to focus on the task ahead of him.
"I love scavenger hunts!" Sakura chimed in. She also had a list. "I know all of the plants! I could easily find all of these. A lot of these are used for food pills and medicines." She had already stopped along the way to pick up a few items off the list.
Sai had been walking around with a notebook and pencil, sketching out some of the flowers and berries that Sakura would point out. Sakura was pleasantly surprised to see that Sai had such a soft side to him. She would consistently check on his progress with his sketches and ask him questions about how he learned to draw. He would always chuckle something along the lines of, "oh it's really nothing..." or, "I just taught myself."
Kakashi noticed Sasuke getting slightly jealous over the lack of attention Sakura had been giving to him, and tried to pretend like he hadn't caught on. Yamato was scouting ahead and jumping trees to look for certain birds, since they had to bring back a pigeon feather.
"SON OF A BI-" they all heard Yamato's cry out from ahead, followed by a thud, and then heavy footsteps running towards them. They soon saw Yamato fly out from the brush onto the main trail, swatting something around him.
"Oh no-"
"Bees?"
"HORNETS!"
They began to hear the humming sound of the swarm that was after Yamato. It didn't take them long to figure out that he must have accidentally found and broke a hornet's nest.
"RUN!" he screamed. Immediately everyone started running farther along the trail, Sakura being the one following closely behind the rest of the group. No matter how fast she ran, it felt like everyone else was running so much faster. She tried to match their pace, but ended up disrupting her chakra balance in doing so, and tripped, face planting. She turned to look behind her and saw she was doomed, as the swarm was right on her.
"OWWW!" her cries rang out as she got stung by not one, not two, but three hornets as they passed over her and continued to follow the group.
"Sakura!" Naruto cried out as if to help her back up, but Kakashi grabbed his arm, pulled him off the trail, and threw him under a bush, following Yamato and the rest into the brush to attempt to hide from the bees.
They waited until they knew for sure they were clear to come back out again, and Naruto flew out and ran back to Sakura. They could hear her moaning in pain now.
Sakura could feel her breathing begin to get shallow, and she noticed it was now difficult to swallow. Her face began to swell, as well as the other places she had been stung, which made her vision blurry. She started to panic. She was now having a hard time breathing.
"Oh no.." she realized, trying desperately to calm down, but the more she tried the more she panicked. "I'm allergic?!"
Naruto arrived, closely followed by the rest of the group, and they all stopped dead in their tracks as soon as they saw the swollen figure on the ground, wheezing.
"Oh shit." Yamato sprung to Sakura's side, taking off his backpack and digging around for something. Finally, he pulled out an epi-pen, took off the cap, and stabbed her with the needle in her thigh. He injected the epinephrine, and then took out the needle and tossed the pen aside. "She needs medical attention immediately!" He scooped her up in his arms, and began sprinting back towards the camp site, shouting, "Tsunade! Medical emergency! Someone get Tsunade!"
"Welp, there goes the scavenger hunt." Kakashi sighed and put his hands in his pockets, beginning to walk back after Yamato.
"Maybe we should stop and pick up flowers for her?" Sai suggested.
Naruto's face lit up. "Yeah! Then she'll know how much I love her! Er, I mean.." He tried to search for a way to recover.
"She'll appreciate it from us." Sasuke concluded. "Sai," he turned towards him. "You were the one drawing all the ones she pointed out. I think we should pick some of those."
Sai smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I think she'd like that too." He then thought for a moment. "Does this mean we're all friends now?"
Sasuke glared at him and simply didn't reply. Naruto grunted and said, "Yeah, sure, as long as it makes Sakura happy."
AROUND THREE HOURS LATER
"Sakura, you have visitors," the nurse announced, opening the curtain to her hospital bed. She had been admitted for surveillance and was being kept on a saline drip. Yamato had stayed with her to ensure she was fine.
"Oh, bring them in."
The nurse let in the five people who were waiting outside to greet her.
"Sakura! How are you feeling?" Naruto immediately started off. "We picked you some flowers!" He held out the bundle of flowers the three boys had picked for her.
"Oh, thank you!" Sakura accepted the flowers and begun to smell them. She smiled. "Ah, they smell so good! You really didn't have to do that." She placed the flowers down on the stand beside the bed.
"It was Sai's idea." Sasuke explained, attempting to act carefree.
Sakura looked at Sai in shock to see his pale face blush slightly as he chuckled nervously and scratched his head.
"Really?" Sakura asked. "How thoughtful.." she trailed off, now feeling guilty for the way she had treated him before.
"I just thought you might like them," he smiled at her reassuringly. She returned the smile.
"I'm really feeling much better now! Yamato carried me all the way here and stayed to make sure I was alright. He got me everything I needed." She smiled at Yamato, and then returned to talking. "It turns out I'm allergic to hornets, but Tsunade took care of me." She started explaining. Kakashi started to tune her out as she spoke of Yamato's actions.
Really, I never expected him to be so paternal. Even with me... Kakashi shifted his stance as he was now focused on Yamato, who seemed to be concentrating solely on Sakura. What's his deal? There's got to be something more to it. Why does he feel the need to help everyone? I'm impressed he was strong enough to even carry her, let alone have the energy to remain by her side even after not sleeping much...
"Kakashi?" his thoughts were cut off by Sakura's voice. He turned to see her and everyone else looking at him curiously.
"Oh.. yes?"
"Are you alright?"
"Yes, why?"
"I was asking you a question..."
"Oh, I'm sorry," his eyes flicked back towards Yamato, who was now staring intently at him with those dark, serious eyes. "I zoned out."