Author's note: Somewhat shorter than the previous one, but couldn't really be helped. Again some of the scenes will be very similar to The Long Run.
Thanks to the following reviewers: 666snoopy; Richon; Iraheta 127; leighd1314; solitare1
Warnings: Hm, nothing in particular.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Kishimoto owns it.
I hope you'll like it!
Chapter 11
Gaara decided to tag along. "Naruto teaching someone?" he snorted. "This I got to see."
"Don't act like I'm such a shit teacher," Naruto grumbled as they made their way to the gates.
"You were good at teaching small kids at least," Gaara agreed and smirked. "Sasuke's not exactly a small kid anymore, though."
That made Naruto leer at Sasuke, who rolled his eyes in response. "Oh, I am more than aware of how big Sasuke is," Naruto said brightly.
"Please stop talking," Sasuke said exasperatedly, "before people start getting the wrong idea."
Not that Deidara needed much more. That idiot seemed entirely caught up in his own fantasy world and refused to explain what the hell this bet about Sasuke and Naruto entailed. Knowing Deidara and the people he hung out with, it couldn't be anything decent or good.
"Or maybe they will get the right idea." Naruto winked and grinned.
"You're rethinking asking him to teach you yet?" Gaara asked dryly, making Sasuke sigh.
"Perhaps I should have shown up at a later hour," he acquiesced. "Clearly waking up early doesn't do him any good."
"That's on you, buddy," Naruto said lightly and linked his arms behind his head.
Having already asked permission to leave the walls, the people manning the gates this morning nodded in confirmation when Sasuke raised his hand. They opened the gates just wide enough for the three of them to slip through one by one and the gates closed immediately again once Gaara was outside.
They walked away from the walls and made their way into the small forest bordering on the compound. The sky was heavily overcast today, painting the forest an even darker shade than it already was. More than half of the trees had become bare by now, all their leaves shed and covering the forest floor; some of them still clung onto the branches stubbornly.
"Looks like we're getting some snow soon," Naruto remarked after a brief glance at the sky through the leaf roof.
Sasuke couldn't help but take notice of the fact that even the dead leaves didn't make any noise when Naruto and Gaara stepped on them. Both men were like ghosts in that sense: drifting through the trees with ease, never producing a sound or leaving anything of their presence behind. Here one second, gone the next. That ability was probably one of the main reasons why they had survived for this long on their own.
The dead couldn't attack what they couldn't hear.
"Yeah, doesn't really bode well for the game around here," Sasuke muttered and frowned. Perhaps it was merely his imagination, but it felt as if the winters were growing more severe with each year passing. Or maybe it just felt like that because they had a harder time scavenging food now that they could no longer rely on shops to feed them.
"How's the supply situation? Got enough stock to last through the winter?" Gaara asked; his breath a faint cloud, barely a wisp.
"You're still doing weekly runs, no?" Naruto didn't even pause when he rammed his dagger into the head of a straggling zombie. A frayed rope connected its decaying wrist to a tree; either the man had known he was about to die or someone else had tied him to it before fleeing.
Sasuke lowered his katana again after making sure no other zombies were around to attack them. "It should tie us over for at least the next two months," he replied. "But we're not going to stop the weekly supply runs unless the weather really makes it impossible."
The more supplies they could collect, the better, because the weather had proven to be rather unpredictable in the past two years. If they became stuck inside the compound in case of horrible weather, they wouldn't starve to death soon at least. Being able to keep up their weekly runs would still be the best option, of course.
"Okay," Naruto announced and stepped out of the bushes into a small clearing. "Think this is far away enough that you won't accidentally hit someone. Well, there's still Gaara of course, but he's quick enough to duck."
"Praise my good reflexes," Gaara droned; the corners of his mouth twitching.
Naruto grinned at him.
The clearing itself was nothing but dead grass and rotten leaves by now; a dead tree stump acting like some sort of beacon in the middle of it all. Sasuke quirked an eyebrow when Naruto marched over to the tree and stuck a crudely drawn bullseye onto it. He gave Sasuke a wink when he caught the dark haired man staring at it.
"You need something as a target. Figured paper was easier than trying to catch a zombie and rope it against a tree," he smirked and lowered his crossbow from his shoulder.
"Less smelly as well," Gaara added.
"I'd ask if you prefer practicing on a living target," Naruto went on, "but well, zombies aren't exactly the definition of alive anymore either, so yeah."
Sasuke snorted quietly. "No, this is fine." A target was a target, no matter the material.
Naruto walked to the middle of the clearing, leaving him nearly twenty feet away from the target. He gestured for Sasuke to stand next to him while Gaara went to lean against a tree behind them, well out of reach from the crossbow.
"First I'm going to show you how to use one and then I'll teach you how exactly," Naruto explained and lifted the crossbow, cocking it against his shoulder. "This this might be the easiest way; it's how Temari-nee-chan taught me. You a visual learner by any chance?"
"Somewhat," Sasuke answered and shrugged.
He had never had any real problems learning a new skill. It was something his classmates in the past had often been jealous of, he knew. It wasn't as if he could help it that he caught onto things quite quickly. That ability had turned out to be an actual real lifesaver in this apocalypse.
"Well, using it ain't as complicated as trying to cure cancer," Naruto said humorously. "You basically hold it like this, as if you're holding the stock of a long firearm or so. You aim at whatever you have in sight, the bullseye in this case obviously, you pull the string into the lock." As he talked he aimed at the tree and pulled the string slowly into the lock; slow primarily for Sasuke's benefit he assumed. No doubt Naruto was actually a lot faster than this when using his crossbow. "And all you have to do then is just push down this lever and …"
A sharp whistling noise cut through the air and the bolt struck the bullseye right in the middle with a quiet 'thwack'. He lowered the crossbow and waved his hand at the bold in a vague 'Voilà' gesture.
"Temari would have been so proud of how much your aim improved," Gaara murmured behind them.
Without even looking back, Naruto casually flipped him off, making the red haired man chuckle a bit.
"It's not terribly complicated as you can see, but it might take a bit before you get used to it and it takes a bit of practice to aim perfectly," he said.
"Or a lot if you have Naruto's skills."
This time Naruto quickly bent down and threw a dried out pinecone at Gaara, who batted it away swiftly.
"Your shoulders and arms might also ache like a bitch for a while, but that's completely normal," Naruto continued unfazed. "You ready to try?"
"Yeah." Sasuke accepted the crossbow and tested the weight of it in his arms. It was slightly heavier than it appeared and he spent a moment studying all the parts carefully, familiarising himself with them.
Naruto let him, retrieving the bolt in the meantime. At least twenty of them were in his quiver, which was slung across his back.
"All right, let's see how you manage the first time," Naruto smiled.
"You can't do any worse than Naruto, just keep that in mind," Gaara said teasingly.
"Should have known you were going to be a dick the entire time," Naruto said amused.
"Why let you have all the fun?"
Sasuke ignored their banter and copied Naruto's earlier pose, raising his arms and aiming the crossbow at the bullseye, trying to line it up perfectly with the centre. Releasing a slow measured breath, he closed one eye, letting the rest of the world fade away until nothing but the bullseye remained. The string was more stubborn than expected, fighting slightly against his grip, but he managed to draw it back correctly either way. Shifting his weight a tad, he pressed down on the lever and watched the bolt zoom away immediately.
Right past the tree.
"Fuck," he said flatly, lowering the crossbow.
"Hey, not bad for a first try!" Naruto said cheerfully, even clapping his hands together once. "Honestly thought you'd do worse than that."
"I didn't hit the bullseye."
"Didn't really expect you to, to be frank. It's always hard to handle a crossbow at the start, but you did a much better job than I expected. I thought it would go way offside," Naruto retorted soothingly.
Sasuke was not swayed by it. "It shot right past the tree."
"Exactly," Naruto pointed out obnoxiously. "Right past the tree. Meaning you got pretty damn close to hitting it, which again, is a good start! You didn't even recoil from the drawback and fall flat on your fine arse," he grinned, making Gaara groan.
"You're incorrigible," he chided.
"I thought you were the one with the fine arse?" Sasuke shot back and lifted an eyebrow.
"Again, please don't encourage him," Gaara droned, crossing his legs as he leant back against a tree.
"Hey, yours isn't that shabby either." Naruto winked, ignoring his friend, and plucked a new dart from the quiver. "Up for another try? Got enough to try out for a bit before we need to collect them."
"Yes, give it here," Sasuke demanded, feeling fired up. He was going to get a handle on the crossbow before they left the forest again, even if he had to try over and over again.
"Tenacious," Gaara said, but it sounded almost admiring instead of insulting.
"Perseverance, I like it," Naruto chuckled and showed him how to load the crossbow.
Right as Sasuke readied himself to take aim once again, a pair of hands landed on his hips, making him freeze in response.
"Shift your hips a bit more like this," Naruto mumbled; his breath startingly close and warm near Sasuke's right ear. "And your arm a bit higher like … Yeah, just like that. This will make it easier to aim. Give it a try now."
"Right," Sasuke muttered, clearing his throat softly. The back of his neck pricked oddly hot with Naruto standing so close to him.
His hands were no longer grasping Sasuke's hips, the blond man hovering just outside of Sasuke's peripheral view, but the imprint of them seemed to last long after Sasuke had pulled the lever again.
Like he had a bullseye of his own on him.
It took another two attempts before he managed to even hit the paper, which he blamed entirely on Naruto's unexpected close presence fucking with his mind for a bit there for some strange reason. Another three tries before he succeeded in actually hitting the bullseye. He smiled grimly, satisfied, when the bolt struck the tree with a quiet but firm 'thwack'. A soft whistle had him turning his head, glancing at Naruto whose arms were loosely crossed. A quick look at Gaara showed the other man looking vaguely impressed as well and he came closer to them, studying the bolt embedded into the tree.
"Man, you really are a fast learner," Naruto said impressed. "Took me a full week of practice before I could even hit the paper, never mind the bullseye."
"Weren't you thirteen back then?" Sasuke asked unimpressed and lowered the crossbow.
"So?" Naruto lifted an eyebrow and jerked his thumb at Gaara, who raised an eyebrow in return. "Gaara was just as old as me, but he killed it from the start, man, age doesn't mean squat."
"Granted I had seen Temari practicing over and over again for much longer than you," Gaara remarked.
"I'll take your word for it," Sasuke murmured and watched Naruto collect the bolts, returning them to the quiver. "Is this the same crossbow you used to practice with?"
Not that it looked particularly worn; used but well taken care of, even Sasuke could see that and he barely had any knowledge about crossbows. There were only a couple of people proficient with the use of them at the compound and Sasuke had been content to stick to using his katana, a knife or his gun to kill zombies.
Naruto didn't answer at first and neither did Gaara. Naruto waved them over to sit with him on a tree stump. This one must have broken off quite a while ago, because there was a lot of moss growing across the bark and some tiny mushrooms still clung to the inside of it.
"That looks like it's going to break any minute now," Sasuke pointed out. "Especially with all three of us."
Nevertheless he walked over to it and sat down on it gingerly, following Naruto's and Gaara's example who looked less apprehensive about using a dead tree stump as a seat. It felt as sturdy as it looked, which was to say basically not sturdy at all, yet somehow it managed to hold their weight.
"It won't," Naruto reassured him and dug something out of his pocket. "Besides, what's falling through rotten wood compared to nearly being gnawed on by undead twats? You want one?"
To Sasuke's surprise Naruto held out a biscuit of all things. He had four of them wrapped in a tissue and Sasuke accepted one befuddled.
"That blonde chick with the blue eyes, Ino, think she's called? She gave them to us," Naruto explained. "She made them herself and offered some to us. Don't know why, though, but hey, free food, man. That's always nice." He handed over a second one to Gaara, who shrugged and started nibbling on it.
Sasuke blinked, making a mental note to ask Ino about this because he hadn't expected this. Not that she was a bitch – not unless you pissed her off badly – but in all the time he had known her, she hadn't been the type to bake biscuits for someone. Especially not for people she barely knew. What was up with that?
"It's not the crossbow I practiced with," Naruto answered Sasuke's earlier question after they had taken their first bite from the biscuit, crumbs fluttering down to the forest floor. "Lost that one when I ran out of bolts and I had to use it to bash some zombies' heads in. Wasn't much use anymore after that. It did teach me to always make sure I don't run out of bolts, though." He snorted; a quick dark smile darting briefly across his face.
"You found this one on the road then?" Sasuke guessed, nodding at the crossbow.
"No, it was my sister's," Gaara unexpectedly answered.
More crumbs ended up on the ground.
Sasuke winced slightly, feeling like he was walking on a minefield now. "Sorry, didn't mean to - "
"Whatever, it's fine," Gaara said brusquely, waving off his apology.
Naruto's gaze flitted between the two of them; a small furrow between his eyebrows.
"I don't particularly mind talking about her," Gaara went on; his gaze trained on the bush across from them. "During our time on the road we ended up briefly going back to our hometown."
"Still don't really know what we expected to find there," Naruto muttered.
"I found my sister's crossbow near our home. It looked like she had managed to make some dent in that zombie herd before they took her down," Gaara said and slowly breathed out. "I decided to take it with me. I figured she wouldn't mind if Naruto ended up borrowing hers."
"I don't think she would," Sasuke murmured.
From what they had told him, he thought Gaara's sister would have been more than happy to know that her crossbow was keeping her brother's best friend alive.
After they had finished the homemade biscuits, Naruto stood up and dusted off his jeans. "Guess it might be best if we return now if you want to be on time for your shift."
Sasuke's stomach did a weird roll at that. "Can we continue practicing tomorrow?" he asked and rose up as well. "I want to make sure that the last one wasn't a fluke."
"You mean you aren't confident about your own skills?" Naruto teased; his blue eyes shimmering with amusement.
Gaara rose up as last one, dusting off his hands.
"Sure, man, if you have time to waste with me, I don't mind," Naruto went on lightly.
"It's not wasting time," Sasuke bit out, surprising himself with his own vigour.
He appeared to have surprised Naruto as well, because the blond man gaped at him for several seconds. Even Gaara was staring at him. Eventually Naruto shook his head with a quiet, but amused huff.
"Whatever you say, man," he said; his face and tone unexpectedly soft. "Come on now, you got a guard shift to take up."
Sasuke wondered privately if the weird feeling in his stomach had something to do with the biscuits he had just eaten. Did Ino even know how to bake? He wasn't sure.
They had to dispose of five zombies on their way back to the compound, but with how decayed they had been, it had been quick and easy work to get rid of them. That was the upside of winter: the cold temperatures tended to make zombies a lot slower than they already were. The only real risk they still posed then was if they banded together in a huge group or if they managed to get the jump on you.
"You got anything planned for this afternoon?" Sasuke inquired curiously as the gates closed behind them again.
"Nah, think the old hag is keeping them from giving me any decent work," Naruto replied and snorted, rolling his eyes as he kicked out his left foot. "She refused to believe that I'm already healed. You think if I bug her long enough, she'll finally ease up her hold on the balls of whoever is in charge of the roster?"
"You bug her long enough, you might find out just how short her temper really is," Sasuke cautioned him. "I'm warning you, Naruto, don't piss her off too badly, you don't want to make an enemy of her."
"Now you're just encouraging him," Gaara said flatly.
"Psssh!" Naruto scoffed, flapping his hand and proving Gaara correct. "I can charm the hell out of her if I want to, just you watch."
"You're an idiot," Sasuke informed him and smirked. Man, he wished he could be there if Naruto tried to unleash his charms on Tsunade. The busty doctor wasn't exactly easily swayed or even charmed, no matter who tried.
"Look, I get that we need the medical supplies, but if you don't find me someone who can handle this motorcycle in that area, you're shit out of luck!"
Anko's unexpected harsh comment had Sasuke slowing down, furrowing his eyebrows when he glanced at the garage. Anko was there, next to the motorcycle she had finished fixing last week. Sakura was there as well, carrying several empty bags, together with Suigetsu and Kisame.
"What's up?" Naruto asked when he noticed Sasuke had stopped.
Sasuke didn't answer, just walked over to the garage, vaguely aware of Naruto and Gaara following him.
"What's going on?" he questioned curiously, attracting their attention.
Sakura blushed but her voice was business like when she replied, "We're running low on several medical supplies such as needles and aspirin. You remember the scouting group who went north two weeks ago?"
Sasuke nodded. There had been some discussion about that, because going north meant going a long distance as everything close by had already been completely looted.
"They found a hospital there which looked still to be untouched, so that should give us a shot at finding more supplies."
"The problem here is," Suigetsu took over, pursing his lips, "that the scouting group had to get the hell out of the dodge there because there was a huge herd collecting, blocking the road. They said there's no chance of a car getting through there, because the road's already pretty damaged. Probably the army who tried blowing up the road, we don't know."
"So the best shot we have at getting access to the supplies is using a motorcycle," Kisame said and sighed, running a hand through his hair. "If the herd is still there, though, it's going to be a bitch manoeuvring through them with the motorcycle. You'll have to be quick enough to work your way through them, but also keep enough control over the bike without crashing. If the road is really that shit, it doesn't sound easy to keep control yet at the same time be fast enough to escape them all."
"Which is why you're not getting the bike," Anko said and scowled. "I'm sorry, Sakura, I know you mean well, but you're shit at handling one."
Sakura flinched and bit down on her lip as she stared at the ground.
"I don't mean to insult you, because honestly, it's just impossible. Several people here would be able to go that fast, but to drive at an impossible speed to keep ahead of the herd and not crash into a road that sounds incredibly fucked up?" Anko shook her head grimly. "Sounds like a suicide mission to me. It's better to wait until we hear from another place where – "
"I can do it."
"There might still be enough – wait, what?" Anko cut herself off, eyes widening. "Sorry, can you repeat that?"
They all turned around to stare at Naruto, who blinked and stuffed his hands in his pockets.
"I can do it," he repeated to their shock, save for Gaara who was merely frowning. "You need someone to drive that sweet ride? Hell, I'm in."
AN2: Yep, we've finally reached this particular part of the story LOL Only took us eleven chapters.
Please leave your thoughts behind in a review; should you spot any mistakes, please point them out to me.
I hope to see you all back in the next chapter! Please stay safe and take care of yourselves!
Cuddles
Melissa
P.S. For more information about my upcoming and posted stories, please visit my profile.
