Chapter 11: A New Teammate
A/N: I am finally back! I ran into a case of major writer's block, but I got inspired after watching Boruto recently. They did a great job adapting Sasuke Retsuden. So many amazing SasuSaku moments. I love Kishimoto, but he needs to let the Retsuden author take care of the romance.
After attending her first(and hopefully last) village council meeting, Sakura was exhausted. Delivering her medical report was simple enough, but she was not prepared for the volley of questions from the council around whether the eye looked like it was intentionally removed. Of course, the elders felt this was some unfortunate incident and did not want to jump to conclusions that a certain sannin was responsible without any proof. On the other hand, the Uchiha were certain that the snake user was responsible and were out for blood. Tsunade did a good job listening to each side and settled on pulling together a team to investigate which soothed both sides. The elders had to admit that there was something fishy about five cases of sharingan users coming back from missions missing an eye in the past few months. Stealing one of the Leaf's most valuable kekkai genkai was no idle matter.
It was also agreed that outside of the council and Uchiha, that Sakura's treatment of Shota would remain a secret, lest Sakura become a target for her extensive medical knowledge of the sharingan. With Sakura busy with her medic duties and Kakashi on a mission, the Uchiha patriarch took over training Naruto and Sasuke for the chunin exams. Naruto tried pressing Sakura for details about why she had to go back to her medic duties, but he quickly gave up once she threw out a bunch of medical terminology he didn't understand.
"One hundred more reps, and then you can be done for the day," Fugaku stated. Naruto groaned and began doing his pushups alongside Sasuke. So far, it had only been a few days of training under the Uchiha patriarch, but it felt like it had been months because of his brutal training regiment. At the crack of dawn, they ran 7 miles followed by chakra control drills. By the afternoon, they worked on jutsu for a few hours. Next was target practice with shuriken, which included Fugaku using Naruto and Sasuke as the shuriken targets. By this time, it was starting to get dark and Fugaku would insist on finishing the day with some type of calisthenics since it strengthened muscle and balance. Yesterday it was planks, and today it was pushups.
Sweat dripped down his forehead as Naruto struggled to do his last ten pushups. He really missed Sakura right now, but she was busy nursing Sasuke's uncle back to health after an intense surgery. He and Sasuke had assumed that Fugaku would be too busy to train then, but he cleared his schedule for the week since he deemed it an important enough task. Secretly, Sasuke was elated to train under his father and show him how much he had progressed since leaving the village with Kakashi. However, it didn't make training any less brutal. Fugaku would accept nothing less than perfection and have no patience for arguments between the two genin. All it took was one side eye from him, and the genin shut their mouths.
"One hundred," the blond nin exclaimed after flopping onto his stomach. Sasuke had finished a few moments before and stood up to lean against a tree for support..
"You both did well today. I'll see you tomorrow morning," Fugaku said before heading back to the main compound. Sasuke responded with a nod, and Naruto gave him a thumbs up without lifting his head from the ground. After a few minutes, the blond rolled onto his back.
"Hey Sasuke," he started. "Can you help me up? I think I pulled something in my neck. I'll need Sakura-chan to examine me once we're back at the house."
Sasuke rolled his eyes but helped his friend up. "Before you pester Sakura, how about you take a soak with some salt or stretch?" The blond could be a bit of a hypochondriac when it came to supposed injuries. Once he woke Sakura up at 3am because he thought he was going to die from kidney failure, but it turned out to be a bad stomach ache from drinking month old milk.
Naruto tilted his head. "Huh. I hadn't thought of that. I'll give it a try. I guess a bath would be similar to going to the hot springs. Good idea!"
They arrived at Itachi's home which was a few blocks from the main house. They were greeted by a very pregnant Izumi in a navy apron.
"Come in. You're just in time for dinner. Good session today?" she asked as she gestured for them to come in.
"Ugh… yeah," Naruto replied as he stumbled to the dining room.
The soon to be mother giggled with a hand to her mouth. "I've heard that Uchiha-san can be quite a challenging trainer, but he gets results!"
"You said it, not me. I thought teme was a hard ass, but he's a complete softy compared to Fugaku-san." Sasuke gave him a stern look as he sat down at the table next to Sakura. Naruto sat across from them next to Izumi. The table was laden with rice balls, gyoza, curried meat, and cabbage soup.
"Naruto!" Sakura admonished. She did not appreciate him calling her boyfriend a hard ass and implying that Sasuke's father was one. Fugaku was not someone you wanted to piss off, especially since he'd been kind enough to let them use the Uchiha training grounds.
Naruto shrugged and grabbed a rice ball to munch on.
Redirecting the conversation, Sasuke asked Sakura if she knew anything about their soon to be third teammate Sai. Starting tomorrow, Sai would join them for training until the exams started in a few weeks. Sakura didn't know much other than he was a skilled enough shinobi for the council to think he'd be an asset to Naruto and Sasuke during the exam.
The foursome finished up dinner, and Sasuke and Sakua cleaned up since Izumi had prepared the meal, and Naruto was so clumsy that they unanimously decided he shouldn't handle the beautiful white porcelain china Itachi and Izumi were gifted at their wedding.
"Oh Izumi-chan, did you find out if you're having a girl or a boy?" the blond asked suddenly.
"I found out a few days ago that we're expecting a boy," she replied with a smile.
"That's great! I bet he'll grow up to be a totally awesome nin with you and Itachi as his parents. Do you know if he'll have the sharingan?"
While Naruto continued to ask Izumi all types of questions on her pregnancy, Sasuke and Sakura quietly slipped away to the room she was staying in.
"Finally, some peace and quiet," Sasuke commented as he sat on the bed with Sakura. She snorted. "I can't believe Naruto has made it this far training with your father. It's a miracle."
"Me either, but enough of that. I feel like I haven't seen much of you recently." Sasuke put his thumb under her chin and leaned in to kiss her. She moaned softly and wrapped her arms around his neck. His hands slowly traveled down her back to rest on her slim hips. After several wonderful minutes of making out, the couple broke apart.
"I wanted to ask you something before I speak with my parents," Sasuke began as he lightly pulled his fingers through her pink silky strands. "Since we're seeing each other, I wanted to tell them officially, if you're alright with that."
"Of course." She rested her head on his chest and absent mindedly drew circles on his rib cage. "I assume it's ok if I let my mother know."
"Aa."
"And what about Naruto, Kakashi-sensei, oh and…"
"If you tell Naruto, you won't need to tell anyone else."
Sakura laughed and kissed his cheek. "You're right. He'll tell everyone for us."
"My parents will want to have you over for dinner after I tell them," he added.
She shrugged. " That's fine Sasuke-kun. I've had dinner at your house plenty of times." She loved going to Sasuke's house for meals. It meant she didn't have to cook, and Sasuke's parents were very kind to her. She was looking forward to it. It had been a while since she had eaten at their home.
"Thank you," he replied with a kiss to her forehead. Sakura inched her way up to give him another kiss which turned into several more. She dragged her hand down his chest stopping at his waist band and pulled away.
"Are there going to be certain expectations or rules with us dating?" she questioned.
"I don't think so. Did you have something specific in mind?"
She blushed. "Well, are there any rules about sex?"
"Oh." Sasuke coughed. He vaguely remembered before going on his training trip with Kakashi that his father sat him down and gave him the obligatory birds and the bees talk which included a terse command to wait until marriage but use birth control if he couldn't. Those were the most uncomfortable ten minutes of his life that he would never get back, so he settled for blocking it out his mind.
"I was told to wait until marriage, but it was a formality. Regardless, it's no one's business what we do with our personal lives. We can if you want, but we don't have to." He knew for a fact that Shisui was not a virgin. It was a known secret that he got around and regularly took on seduction missions. Most shockingly, while Sasuke was helping Itachi move out before the wedding, he found a box of condoms. He didn't see an issue with sex before marriage if both people were ok with it. He was also a 16 year old guy, so he wanted to have sex with his girlfriend, preferably not in five plus years when he would even consider marriage.
"I'm fine either way. If it happens, it happens. I'm already on birth control so no need to worry about that." The minute kunoichi were sent on missions outside of the village, they were put on birth control as a precaution.
Sasuke nodded in agreement as he rose from the bed. "I'm going to head back to my parents home for a bit, but I'll see you…"
"This weekend. I'll be done with Shota's rehabilitation tomorrow."
"Good," the raven haired nin gave Sakura a kiss goodbye and exited through the window.
He found his parents in their study crowded around the desk examining some scrolls. They turned to him.
"Sasuke-kun, what a surprise. I thought you'd be in bed by now at Izumi and Itachi's home," his mother noted.
Not wasting any time, he cut to the case."Sakura and I are dating."
Mikoto practically squealed and launched herself on Sasuke for a hug. "I'm so happy for you two!" She kissed him on the cheek, and he huffed. "We're both so happy for you," she added with a look over Sasuke's shoulder at Fugaku that said you better be happy.
"Yes, son. That's great news. Sakura is a bright and talented young woman, the most promising kunoichi of her generation," the patriarch said as he put the scroll back in the mahogany desk drawer.
Pulling away from his mother, he tried not to let his shock show. His father had never been that complimentary to even Itachi, who was the pride of the Uchiha clan. There were worse things he could have said, so Sasuke let it go.
"Why don't you invite her over for dinner this Saturday and we'll celebrate?" his mother suggested. "And Naruto-kun as well. It's been so long since we've hosted the three of you."
Sasuke agreed and promised to let his teammates know tomorrow.
Sasuke expected Naruto to pitch a fit when he told him about his change in relationship status.
"You and Sakura-chan are dating?!" Naruto exclaimed with his jaw nearly on the floor. On route to their training session, Sasuke decided to break the news.
"Yes. That's what I just said which is why you're invited to dinner on Saturday. Keep up dobe." Sasuke took a sip of water and headed towards the field. Naruto scrambled to catch up with him.
"When did this happen? How did this happen? I need details!" the jinchuriki cried. What did Sakura see in Sasuke? Didn't she know she had other options? Less rude and mean options? It was bizarre. His two best friends were dating. And since when was Sasuke attracted to the opposite sex? Girls were throwing themselves at him all the time, and he never responded.
"Just be at my house at 7pm this Saturday," the Uchiha replied as he grabbed a set of shuriken.
Naruto was about to reply with more questions but got distracted by the sight of their new teammate Sai. With his straight black hair, dark eyes, and translucent-looking skin, he could easily be mistaken for an Uchiha.
"Teme, you sure Sai isn't some long lost Uchiha," he whispered as he waved the man over.
Sasuke crossed his arms and gave him a blank stare. "None of the men in my clan would wear that type of shirt." He wore a short black-and-grey jacket over a high-collared shirt which exposed half of his midriff, along with black pants and standard shinobi sandals. Not only was the shirt impractical since it exposed a vulnerable part of the body to the elements, it was a little flamboyant.
"Hi! I'm Naruto Uzumaki!" He struck out his hand, and Sai paused before shaking it. He pasted on a fake smile and greeted him back.
"You must be Sasuke Uchiha," Sai observed.
"Aa."
Sai whipped out a scroll and pen from his backpack and began writing.
"Ugh, what are you doing?" the blond asked as Sasuke eyed him suspiciously.
"Recording our interactions, so I can tailor my responses accordingly in the future. I read in a book that it's helpful to remember how people respond to certain situations, so you can react better in the future."
"At least you can read and write, which is more than I can say for dobe."
Naruto growled. He could read and write, not well, but he could. He launched himself onto the Uchiha. "You take that back!"
When Fugaku came to the field, he was greeted by the sight of Naruto and Sasuke tussling in the grass while Sai watched and took notes on his scroll. He cleared his throat which ceased the mele.
"I thought we had moved past this sort of behavior," the Uchiha clan head noted, while he pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Tou-san, we apologize. It won't happen again." He jabbed the blond in the chest.
"Sorry Uchiha-san. We got a little carried away," he said sheepishly.
The newest member of Team Seven ceased his note taking. "Uchiha-san. A pleasure to meet you."
"You must be Sai," he observed before he assigned sparring pairs. He would spar with Naruto while Sasuke sparred with Sai. During the lunch break, Sai hardly interacted with the group, instead opting to take notes.
Towards the end of the lunch hour, Sai said he had decided on nicknames for everyone.
"I think I'll call you dickless," he declared looking at Naruto who turned purple, "and I'll call you gay," glancing at Sasuke. While Sasuke wanted to pummel the creep, he was on thin ice with his father, so he grabbed Naruto before he could do any serious damage to Sai.
Seeing the blond's outrage, Sai wisely decided not to announce his nickname for Fugaku. It seemed that giving people nicknames could provoke a negative reaction. He recorded this observation on his scroll. Meanwhile, Fugaku ignored the conversation since Sasuke seemed to have a handle on it and tersely instructed the three on their remaining training exercises. Needless to say, he was looking forward to going back to the police station.
Saturday evening
Sakura looked in the mirror and put the finishing touches on her face. She kept the makeup low key with some blush, mascara, and pale pink lip gloss. She donned a pale green a-line dress that skimmed the top of her knee and white heels. Her hair was up in a french twist with a few tendrils playfully framing her heart faced face.
She grabbed her purse and bouquet of flowers then headed for the door. Within fifteen minutes, she was on Sasuke's front door nervously twisting her hands. Her boyfriend had mentioned that there would be some extra guests at dinner including some of the clan elders. She shook her head and told herself to be brave. She could do this. She had faced an Akatsuki member, so this dinner should be easy as pie. Before she knocked on the door, Shisui opened it.
"Hey Sakura-chan! Congrats! I'm happy for you and Sasuke-kun." He welcomed her in and slung an arm around her and led her to the foyer. "If you get tired of him, I'm always available," he joked with a grin.
"Stop flirting with Sasuke-kun's girlfriend," Izumi chastised as she carried a bottle of sake towards the kitchen.
"Yeah, Shishui. Won't the Mizukage be jealous?" Naruto added wiggiling his eyebrows.
The Anbu member had the decency to redden. "That's classified information, Uzamki."
"I didn't know you liked older women," Sakura commented.
Shisui groaned. "The Mizukage doesn't look old though. She's got huge -"
Before Naruto could finish his sentence, Sakura gripped his arm tightly.
"That explains why you've had so many missions in Mist recently," Izumi deduced.
Her cousin sighed. "Please don't make this a thing. It's not anything serious."
With a shared look of mirth, the girls turned towards the kitchen pulling Naruto along while Shisui followed behind silently cursing loud mouth blonds.
When Sakura got to the kitchen, she was surprised to see practically all of Sasuke's aunts and female cousins quietly chattering while making not so covert glances at her, as if sizing her up. Among the sea of black hair and black eyes, Sakura's pink hair and emerald eyes stuck out like a sore thumb. Mikoto quickly intercepted her.
"Hello dear! Let me take those beautiful flowers. Thank you for bringing them!"
"I wasn't raised to come to someone's home empty handed," the pinkette said with a nervous smile. She had no idea that so many people would be at dinner.
Mikoto enlisted Naruto, Izumi, and Shisui to help with the remaining dinner preparations.
Sakura was about to offer to help, but a hand gently touched her lower back. She turned her head to see her boyfriend. "Let's go sit down."
As the pair walked from the hallway, she whispered to Sasuke, "How many people are here?"
"About 40 or so," he replied. Seeing her alarm he added, "But only half of them will be eating in the formal dining room with us. I didn't think kaa-san would invite so many people, but they're just eager to get acquainted with you."
She laughed nervously. "I guess I'll take that as a compliment."
The dining room seemed larger than she remembered. The large rectangular cherry wood table had been extended with two leafs to accommodate such a large group. Mikoto had pulled out all of the stops with beautiful crystal china, crisp white napkins, and expensive looking bottles of sake. In the middle of the table was the bouquet of red roses and white lilies that she had brought. Mostly men, who she didn't know, occupied the table. Sasuke's father was at the head of the table and flanked by Shota and an elderly man.
"Sakura-san, come sit beside me," Shota beckoned with a smile. Sakura felt her nerves calm somewhat at the sight of someone familiar.
She sat next to Shota with Sasuke beside her. Aside from the eye patch on the right side of his face, he didn't look like he had just come back from an S-class mission beaten within an inch of his life a week ago.
"Sakura," Fugaku greeted with a head nod. She smiled back. "This is one of my Mikoto's uncles, Izu. He is also one of our elders."
"I'm pleased to meet you Uchiha-san," she greeted with a dip of her head.
"Haruno-san. Thank you for all you've done for our family. We're very grateful."
The medic nin blushed. "You can call me Sakura, and I'm just doing my job."
With the help of a reluctant Shisui, an elderly woman slowly sat next to Izu. She was hunched over with graying hair in a tight bun and a navy kimono. She wore a frown as she assessed Sakura with her obsidian eyes.
With a tired sigh, Fugaku introduced the woman. "Sakura-san, this is my mother in law Kana." Sakura had heard Sasuke and Shisui allude to their grandmother. Allegedly, she was an old hag who was constantly pestering Shisui about settling down and having plenty of Uchiha babies. Sasuke clearly cared for and respected her, but he had mentioned offhandedly that she could be a bit traditional.
"I suppose we can overlook her lineage since she's the top of her generation," Kana commented.
Sakura's eyes widened, unsure how to respond.
Kana continued her assessment of Sakura "She's a small thing. We'll need to fatten her up, so she's plenty fertile."
Sakura's eyes were bulging out of sockets at this point, and she struggled to keep her mouth open.
"Baa-san. We're not thinking about marriage right now. I still need to make jonin, and Sakura has her medic nin studies," the raven hair nin countered evenly. He had expected his grandmother to bring up children, but he did not appreciate it. He and Sakura had only recently started dating.
"There's no rush. Let them enjoy dating each other now. It's far too early to be thinking about marriage, let alone children," Shota added.
"Yeah. This isn't the Warring Era where people were getting married and popping out kids as early as 13," the body flash nin added with a smirk.
"You would do well to heed my advice, Shisui. If you wait too long, all of the most eligible women will be already married by the time you get around to looking for a wife," the grandmother argued.
Shisui rolled his eyes, and Fugaku took a long sip of his rice wine.
Before a full blown argument could break out, Naruto burst into the room and tackled Sasuke and Sakura with a bear hug.
"I can't believe it! My two best friends are dating," he exclaimed. "I thought teme was lying when he told me, but it's true."
Sasuke shoved the blond into the seat next to him.
"Thanks Naruto. Now, we just need to find you someone," Sakura said with a wink.
The blond chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. "I've gotta pass the chunin exams before I think about finding a lady."
Grateful for the change of subject, Shisui inquired about their progress towards the exam.
"It's coming up fast. Just one week away! But we're gonna pass with flying colors. Believe it!" The blond pumped his fist in the air, and the group couldn't help but laugh.
"If Sai doesn't screw it up," Sasuke mentioned quietly. Initially, Sasuke was worried Naruto would drag him down, but they were able to work well together once they stopped arguing with each other. Sai had thrown a wrench in their teamwork with his constant inappropriate questions and creative nicknames. Sasuke spent half of training keeping Naruto from shoving a rasengan up his ass and killing their third teammate.
"That guy is such a weirdo! Sakura-chan, are you sure there's no way you can't retake the chunin exams with us?" Naruto gave Sakura his best puppy dog eyes, and she snorted.
"Even if I wanted to, which is against village policy, I'm not retaking the exams for you two. Sai can't be that bad."
The blond grumbled, and Fugaku noted, "Sai is a strange character."
"You can't always choose who you work with, so you just have to make the best of it Naruto-kun," the body flash nin added sagely.
"Besides, you traveled with Jiraya-san for two and half years. A few weeks with Sai won't kill you," the pinkette argued.
"Hey! What's wrong with pervy sage?"
"He's the author of those most indecent books! What an inappropriate man!" Kana exclaimed.
For the first time of the evening, Sakura found herself agreeing with Kana. While he was a legendary nin, Jiraiya was a total creep. Her mentor was constantly getting complaints about him peeping on women at the hot springs which Jiraiya argued was 'research for his latest book.'
"Indecent? Those books are boring as hell," Naruto replied. Sasuke agreed. As part of some ploy for training to go undercover and collecting information from women, Kakashi ordered him to read one of those ridiculous orange books. In his opinion, it was unimaginative smut. He didn't see why it was so popular.
"How you wound me!" Shisui dramatically put a hand over his heart. "Icha icha is a literary masterpiece!"
"Of course you're a fan," his grandmother replied with a harumph.
Blessedly, Shota changed the conversation to something more tame than literary porn and began asking Naruto about his adventures while traveling with Jiraiya. The rest of the evening went smoothly with Naruto entertaining the table with tales of his time with the toad sanin and Shisui adding in his own few stories of unclassified missions while Sasuke expertly deflected any inappropriate remarks from his grandmother on marriage and children. Sakura answered questions here and there about her civilian background and what her training was like under Tsunade. For some reason, the Uchiha seemed to be willing to overlook her mentor's Senju heritage. Sakura chalked it up to her significant contributions to medicine.
Once the meal was over, people started to trickle out. Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto headed back to their temporary residence.
"It's good to be back," the blond nin exclaimed looking up at the star studded sky. Traveling with Jirayia had been a once in a lifetime adventure, but he was glad to be in Leaf again. Having dinner with the Uchihas and his two best friends had reminded him of his fortune. He was happiest when he was with his people.
Sakura smiled and put her arms around the two. "I'm glad we're all together again."
"Aa," Sasuke agreed quietly.
"Teme's family even seemed to like you," the blond added.
"Ouch Sakura-chan! That hurt!" He gingerly rubbed his cheek.
"Why do you sound so surprised that Sasuke-kun's family likes me?"
"They tolerate you dobe, so of course they would like Sakura."
"Hey!" Of the newfound effects of his best friends dating was how easily they ganged up on him. He wasn't a fan.
Sakura laughed and silently thanked kami that Team Seven was back.
It looks like the Uchiha were right, the copy nin thought. His sharingan recorded the scene of Orochimaru's lackey handling a jar or floating red eye balls.
With all of the necessary evidence, Kakashi lowered his hiate and flickered away.