“Hmmm…” Naruto grunted, his arms crossed and a serious expression on his face. The face was older, but the expression upon his best friend’s face made Sasuke think back to the first part of their Chuunin Exam when Naruto had pretended to understand Morino Ibiki’s reasoning behind his test. He wondered if this situation was similar to that one, but then again Naruto had continued being Sakura’s teammate long after he had left and knew things that he didn’t.
“Yep, that explains everything now.” Naruto said once Sasuke has finished telling him what he had heard. “Sakura and her old man have never really gotten along very well. The man’s bitter. He’s never really gotten over the fact that he had to give up being a shinobi because of that injury that left him with a limp. It’s a damn shame that Tsunade-baachan wasn’t around when it happened because she could have probably fixed it, but it’s been so long that there’s no fixing it. In any case, Haruno Hisoka planned on having a son to fulfill his dreams, but after Sakura was born, her mom couldn’t have any more kids. At least not with out risking her life.
“So he’s disappointed with Sakura because she couldn’t be the son he wanted,” Sasuke said, glancing at Sakura’s closed bedroom door. He could understand that feeling of not being good enough in the eyes of one’s father. Uchiha Fugaku had been focused mainly on Itachi and had only begun to notice his younger son when it became apparent then the elder had started to rebel. “And Sakura wasn’t much of a ninja when we first left the Academy. But she’s ANBU now. He should be proud of her accomplishments.”
“If only that was the case. The man’s a hard ass. Never pleased or satisfied with anything Sakura-chan does. He was happy enough with her when she made Chunin, at least that’s what Ino told me. I was training, so I didn’t see it. But Ino says he was pretty mellow for a while after that and then I came back.” There was a tightening in the blonde’s expression as he paused. “Her father doesn’t care too much for me. Hell, he hates me because of the Kyuubi and because I’m doing what he’ll never be able to do. I think part of the reason why Sakura-chan couldn’t stand me when we were younger was because of him. He’s a bastard a lot of the time, but she cares about him and wants to please him.”
“Sakura likes to please those she cares about,” Sasuke said, causing the Kyuubi to look at him surprise. They had been a team for such a short time together and Sasuke had been gone for so long that he hadn’t thought the Uchiha would have picked up on that part of their teammate’s personality.
“Yeah, she does. But once she got to know me she stopped paying attention to his opinion about me anymore. I figure it pissed him off and he gave her some grief over it. But she wouldn’t give up our friendship because he didn’t think I was good for her reputation and career as a shinobi. She stood by me even though I knew things were tense for her at home. She was rarely home because of it. Always on some mission, at the hospital, or working for Tsunade-baachan. A lot of times she would make excuses to spend the night at Ino’s or one of the other girls to avoid going home to that tension. Hell, she even spent some nights at my place”
Sasuke sent Naruto a sharp look at the comment, which the blonde just brushed off. “Nothing happened. Sakura-chan’s like a sister to me. Sure, I had a crush on her when we were kids and she is really pretty, but I know it really wouldn’t work between us. Besides, she always had a thing for you anyways.”
“That’s doubtful,’ Sasuke said. “Her behavior towards me is now is nothing like when we were younger. She seems almost indifferent to me.”
“Teme, what are you dense,” Nartuo complained. “That was when we were kids. Sakura-chan’s no longer a girl anymore. She’s a woman and women go about showing their affection differently then when they’re girls. Besides, I think she’s under the delusion that she doesn’t like you that way anymore.”
“And what makes you so sure,” the other man countered.
“Why do you care so much that she might still care for you,” the Kyuubi retorted, and was rewarded when his companion had no comeback except for his customary ‘hn’ which could convey a whole variety of things. But in this case, Naruto was pretty sure that was the only response that the other man could make to something he probably wasn’t sure about himself. When it came to feelings, Naruto really was more advanced then his best friend and ‘brother’. They had both had difficult pasts, but Naruto had not allowed his past to stunt his emotional development as it had for some of his friends.
“Sakura-chan, I think was more hurt then she let on when you left,” Naruto said quietly, a quick check at Sakura’s chakra telling him that the pink-haired kunoichi was sleeping, although he didn’t think it the calm and relaxing sleep. He knew from past experience, that Sakura’s sleeping patterns after an argument with her father were erratic as if she still continued to fight the man in sleep. “Didn’t help things much the few times we found you and the way you acted. A woman’s heart has to take some pounding when the man she loves tries to kill her a few times.”
The Kyuubi shot a pointed look at the Uchiha, whose expression remained unchanged in response to the words and the look. ‘Damn teme,’ thought the blond. ‘Not a single slip. Probably doesn’t even react when he’s having sex.’ And that was a thought that Naruto wanted to think too deeply about. There were just some things in life a man didn’t need to know or think about it, not matter how perverted he was naturally or by osmosis through his time with his godfather.
“She kept a smile on her face and kept on training, but I think that was more for my sake and Kakashi-sensei. Sometimes I’d catch this sad look in her eyes when she thought no one was looking and someone had mentioned your name. Hinata-chan thinks that Sakura took her feelings and locked them away in a box in her heart so they wouldn’t hurt as much. And with they way her mind works, she’s probably talked herself into believing that her feelings are purely platonic now. Maybe they are, but either way if you want her love you’re going to have to work for it this time, Sasuke. She’s just not going to give it to you like she did before.”
The blond paused and met the eyes of the other man. There seemed to be a clash of wills as blue eyes stared hard into the black eyes of his best friend. There was a hint of tension in the room, or the hint of a future battle.
“But you better be sure that you want Sakura’s love, Sasuke. Because Sakura is one of the three women in this world that I love. I don’t care if you’re my best friend. I’ll beat the shit out of you if you ever hurt her again. Sakura deserves to have everything she dreams of, so make sure that you know what you want before you do something.”
Sasuke didn’t show any visual reaction; to do so would mean that he was actually starting to consider having something with Sakura other then friendship they once had and he wasn’t ready to admit as much when he wasn’t quite sure himself. He wasn’t surprised by his friend’s words. He understood the other man well enough to know how much friends meant to the blond and the extents the Kyuubi would go for those dear to his heart. Team Seven was one of the first people to accept him and so he cherished each member of that team. His bond with them had deepened with each of their missions, even the ridiculously easy ones, and they had become a family. It was one of the driving forces that had pushed Naruto to keep trying to bring him back to Konoha before he was ready to.
He had just never realized how much the team had meant to Sakura as well. He had no clue what her relationship with her mother was, but with what Naruto had told him about her home life then it was very likely that she had needed the team and the family they had created just as much as the other members had needed it for their own reasons.
It made him rethink the night he left and the desperation that had been evident in the pink-haired kunoichi’s eyes. He had dismissed it then as nothing more then a fangirl’s devotion to keeping her idol close, although deep inside he had known better. He had known she had wanted to make him stay because she cared and worried about him. Because she had really loved him. It was just now he realized that she might also have been driven by her need to keep the small family she had formed with her team together.
“Better go to sleep,” Naruto said. “It’s late. And Tsunade-baachan will probably assign us with all the shit she can’t dump on any of the new Genin who have a team leader smart enough to say no.”
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Naruto’s prediction was right on the mark. A little too on the mark, in fact. When the leaders of the new Genin teams heard that Uchiha Sasuke was back again, they had decided to request the day off to train their students for the upcoming Chuunin exam. Their students would need it, especially if any had the misfortune to be paired up with Sasuke in the one-on-one battle portion of the exam.
So all the D-rank missions of the day were theirs. Once he heard that, Naruto had tried to sneak away, but Sakura, anticipating the Kyuubi’s movements, had grabbed him by the shirt before he could take off. It was with great amusement that the Uchiha fell behind the two as Sakura dragged Naruto out of the Hokage’s office while he alternated from pouting to explaining that he had merely been getting a head start on the work.
Most of the assignments were fairly easy although quite tedious. It was mind-blowing to consider how many chores and errands that the citizens of Konohagakure had passed off to be taken care of the Genin of the village. While Sakura reasoned that it only seemed it a lot because they were taking all of the D-rank missions that had came in for that day and most of these were usually split among the Genin teams, it was still daunting. In fact, as they finished what had to be their fifth painting job that day, she was beginning to think that people were just downright lazy. It was just lucky for them that they all had skills that far-surpassed any Genin team that allowed them to go through many of the jobs quickly and with ease.
And then they came to their final mission of the day that brought back great memories to all three. The reason being was this particular mission was the first one they had completed together as a team. The only difference now was they were older and the feline they were after was the son of the cat they had been ordered to capture on their first mission. Toki, like his mother Tora, didn’t particularly care to be owned by Madam Shijimi, the Fire Daimyo’s wife since age hadn’t made the woman any less over-nauseatingly affectionate as she had been with Tora. And no male tom would stick around with an owner who insisted on forcing him to wear a bright pink ribbon on his ear.
Because capturing the cat was a D-rank mission that was regulated to Genin and Sasuke was still legally one even if his strength and abilities surpassed the average Genin by a million, it was supposed to be his task to capture the task while Sakura and Naruto were only to assist by helping him to corner the cat. However, with a few careful well-chosen words, Sasuke was able to rile up the blond in a way that made Naruto see the mission as a competition to see who would catch the catch first because regardless of their legal rank, it would determine who the better ninja was.
Naruto, of course, couldn’t resist a challenge as Sasuke had known. And Naruto being Naruto hadn’t realized that Sasuke hadn’t been trying as hard as he should have to catch Toki. That is not until after he had captured Toki and gotten all scratched up by the cat’s claws before they got the demon feline into the cat carrier.
“Ow ow ow,” Naruto whimpered, looking rather pathetic with scratches all over his face and arms, as Sakura wiped at the scratches with some alcohol wipes to disinfect them. “That hurts Sakura-chan.”
“Suck it up Naruto,” she retorted, as she continued her task with the same sort of meticulousness that was characteristic of her. “Who knows what that cat go into while he was running around Konoha? I don’t want them to heal without being properly cleaned.” Since the Kyuubi inside of Naruto gave him an enhanced and accelerated healing factor.
“But it hurts,” whined the blond.
“Honestly, are you sure you’re even ANBU,” she hissed at him, since the identity of those who wore the masks was supposed to remain a secret to those outside of the Hokage’s elite shinobi. The only reason why Sasuke was even allowed to know that she and the Kyuubi were part of the group was because Tsunade had correctly guessed that Naruto would be unable to hide that fact from the Uchiha. In some way or another Naruto would have given himself away and then Sakura. It still surprised her that the only other person he had spilled the beans too was Hinata and Iruka-sensei. “You’re going to wind up with worse wounds on those missions. Mou, stop being a baby.”
Naruto pouted but managed to refrain from complaining anymore, not that it stopped him from making exaggerated faces of pain. It was inevitable that the humor in the situation would get to the kunoichi and the corners of her lips twitched as she tried to refrain from smiling. Seeing this, the Kyuubi hammed it up even more until finally she gave up, not only smiling but started to laugh. Even the Uchiha found he couldn’t remain unaffected by the situation, not with the baka Naruto’s antics and the air filled with Sakura’s laughter; he didn’t smile or laugh, yet when his teammates glanced at him they noted that his eyes seem gentler somehow.
“SAAAAAAKUUUUUURAAAAAA-SEEEEEEENSEEEEEEEI!!!”
The moment was shattered. Sakura sighed and muttered something about Naruto’s bad influence as Sasuke turned towards the direction of where the yelling had come from. He saw a young girl, walking between another girl on her right and guy on her left, waving wildly at them as if her yelling had gotten their attention. All three looked to be no older then about eleven (well he assumed on and all wearing, somewhere on their person, a hitai-ate, the same age that he, Sakura, and Naruto had become Genin. It was clear by the way they moved together that they were team and going by what they yeller had been hollering that they were Sakura’s team.
“Mou, Sakura-sensei,” said the yeller again, as she stood in front of them with her hands on her hips. “You said you’d be done by two and it’s almost four. I wanna train!”
“I said probably, Rin-chan,” Sakura replied, rising to her feet and reaching out to ruffle the girl’s head affectionalltey. “I didn’t think it would take that long to complete all of today’s D-rank missions, but Toki’s gotten a lot sneakier since you guys chased him down last month. Now remember your manners and introduce yourself to Sasuke.”
“I hate cats,” muttered the yeller. Now that she was closer, the Uchiha could see the bright red fang markings on her cheek that made her identifiable as a kunoichi of the Inuzuka clan. She looked similar to Kiba’s sister, Hana, at least with choice of hairstyle; the only real differences were that this kunoichi had messy bangs and two tendrils of hair that framed her face. Like most of the Inuzuka clan, she had dark eyes, in her case black, which had the same kind of wicked glint in them that Kiba was known for. Her height, he guessed, was average for a girl her age; she really didn’t look much bigger then Sakura had been at twelve. She wore a sleeveless purple shirt that stopped just above her knees and black capris with the black sandals shinobi wore (well until the kunoich wore and then the got the heeled sandals). She wore her hitai-ate, which instead of the customary black, was a matching purple to her shirt, around her neck like the Hyuuga heiress tended to wear hers. Peering behind her legs was not one, but two black puppies that were indistinguishable except that one had one white front paw.
“I’m Inuzuka Rin,” the yeller said, pointing to first to the one with a white paw and then the other, “and these two are Yorumaru and Kuroi. I plan to be a Jounin by the time I’m 16. Which means” she shot Sakura another look, “that I need to train a lot so I can pass the Chuunin exams the first time around.”
“Rin,” Sakura said, a warning tone in her voice.
“I’m just saying…”
“Keep it up and Sakura-sensei’s going to make you do duck walks or clean Naruto-onii-san’s apartment again Rin-chan,” said the other female Genin who seemed to mutter something about preferring the duck walks as punishment. She smiled up at Sasuke, completely unfazed by the man, which reminded him of a younger Sakura who had tagged after him no matter how much he ignored her or those rare moments when he lost control and let his temper slip out. “I’m Hino Kyoko. You’re a Sharingan user like Kaskashi-sensai right? That’s so cool. I wish I could have the Sharingan too. It’d make it easier to learn jutsus.”
Sasuke didn’t know quite how to respond to the young girl’s chatter so all she got was a ‘hn’ not that she seemed to let that deter her from staring at him with what could only be called a small case of hero worship. Clearly having more then one Sharingan eye made him awesome in her eyes.
Unlike Rin, Kyoko was short and if it wasn’t for the fact that she was clearly starting to make the change into girl into woman, one would mistake her as being actually younger then her age from a distance. Once you saw her face, there was no mistaking her as being a younger child. There was a level of maturity in those eyes that came up with living and although some children could get that look at a younger age (he had), in most cases it took time. Out of the three, she had the most vibrant hair which was a rich dark red, the kind of red of good wine and was worn in two long pigtails that bounced as she talked and gestured. Her eyes were a shade of green that were a shade or two darker then Sakura’s. She wore a short shirt that matched the color of the hair paired with black shorts and a black vest that stopped mid chest. Her hitai-ate was red and worn like a belt around her waist.
Sasuke turned to the final Genin in Sakura’s team and the only boy. Black eyes clashed with a milky white; Sakura had a Hyuuga on her team and from the look in the boy’s eyes this Hyuuga didn’t care for the Uchiha. Not that was a big deal; Neji had never cared much for Sasuke either. However while Neji had been indifferent for the most part of saw Sasuke as a rival, this kid’s eyes were downright hostile.
“Yuki-kun,” Sakura prompted.
“Hyuuga Yukito,” the boy said, his tone empty although his eyes burned hot. For whatever reason the kid had it in for Sasuke in a way Neji had even though he did look sorta like the Hyuuga prodigy that the Uchiha had known. The only difference was that Yukito’s hair was jet black. The kid even dressed like Neji which made Sasuke wonder how close a blood tie there was between the two.
“And that’s Team Two,” said Naruto, “otherwise known as Team Sakura and the best shinobi that graduated the academy last year.” The way he was boasting, you’d think that the three were his students and not Sakura’s.
“And where’s your team dobe,” he asked, arching an eyebrow at the blond.
“I’m too important to be teaching some kids right now,” Naruto retorted.
“What he means is the Godaime doesn’t think he’s ready for the responsibility,” piped up Rin. “Cause he can’t keep his apartment clean by himself and he’s killed every plant that Sakura-sensei’s ever gave him.”
“Riiiiiin,” cried Naruto, his voice almost whining. “That’s not true. I’m not teaching because they need my strength and skills to help protect Konoha. Right Kyoko-chan? Yukito?”
“You still kill your plants,” was Kyoko’s response which was neither a yes or no. The child clearly had a knack for avoiding taking sides when she didn’t want to.
“Hinata-onee-san and Neji-onii-san told me I should never lie”
Naruto pouted at the lack of support to his claims and then leaned down towards the two pups. “You two believe me don’t you?” The pups stared at him for a moment, tails wagging. They then glanced at each other and then in unison they lifted a paw to cover their eyes. It was apparent that even the pups doubted him.
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Final Thought from Tsunade:
Honestly Naruto, how hard is it to keep a simple plant alive?
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Author’s Note:
Just in case anyone is interested, I’ve been trying to draw little Kyoko which you can find on my account on deviantArt: http://darksongstress.deviantart.com/
Special thanks to my friend Taylor, who took the time to read over this chapter for me before I posted it. =)
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kunoichi - female ninja
hitai-ate - the forehead protector worn by nins
baa-chan - Naruto's way of referring to Tsunade which basically means grandma or old lady
-shishou - teacher/mentor
dobe - idiot
teme - a really rude way to say 'you'
Otou-san – father
-sensei – teacher
mou – basically means geez
onii-chan/san - a term to refer to one's older brother or an older male that one has a close friendship with.
-onee-chan/san – a term to refer to an older sister or an older female.
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Disclaimer: I do not claim any rights to Naruto or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Kishimoto Masashi and anyone else he says has rights to it.
