Chapter 14: I Can Dream About You

Yoshino sighed, looking around at the growing stacks of building materials that were destined to go back to Konoha. She shook her head – just like going on vacation – they were going to be bringing more stuff home than they took out with them. Still, she supposed this was good for trade overall. Konoha had a surplus of labor at the moment, there was an abundance of construction going on here in Wave and also an abundance of raw materials.

She looked at the stacks of lumber. To her, wood was wood. But the properties of the varieties of hardwoods that grew here in the Land of Waves seemed to be of particular interest to their clients. They’d be a veritable caravan on the way back to Konoha with all this stuff in tow. Something to do with the density of the fibers made it particularly weather resistent so the Leaf carpenters were anxious to work with it back home.

She sprang up into the trees to better overlook the cordoned off area. It might be good for business and trade but the ever expanding field was becoming more and more difficult to watch. Yoshino wasn’t the only chuunin who thought so and they’d brought it up to the team leader and he had reluctantly agreed that they needed to post a second guard.

Mugato Uchiha, everything about the guy was so…surly. Sure, she understood and respected chain-of-command, it was important to a well-ordered unit, but Mugato treated the chuunin like mere underlings. It was distasteful to say the least. He was the complete opposite of her last team leader, Asako, Yoshino thought sadly to herself.

Ugh, five days into a two week mission and the hours were dragging by. It was a lovely afternoon and she wanted to slip off into blissful daydreams about Shikaku but that wouldn’t be fair to her clients. Daydreaming in your off-hours only, Sakamoto, she told herself.

It was easy to want to retreat into daydreams. This mission was slipping easily into the drudge-work category. There was no violence or crime to speak of, no need for any battle tactics. Any minor altercations that did come up were handled either by the construction team leaders if it involved their personnel only or by Wave’s local police force if local citizenry were involved. She’d heard of a few brawls, some stolen tools from various worksites, but not much else.

The city had the potential to shape up into a nice resort, unfortunately for now there was so much construction debris that it was really cluttering up the area. Plus it had rained recently and much of the cleared areas were now muddy, soggy messes. When you could find a nice spot on one of the beaches to relax in off-hours, the construction noise in the background made it not the most restful places to be. “Bustling” was certainly a good way to describe the city, but it was so far removed from what she was longing for right now.

Trying not to slip into full-blown daydream mode, she let her mind drift back to the first time she’d spent with Shikaku at the deer meadow. It was so quiet, so peaceful, the two of them had been completely alone, almost as if they were the only two people on the planet. No sounds of construction there, only birdsong and the chorus of crickets and cicadas. His arms around her had been so warm and strong, his voice deep and thrilling…

Speaking of voices she heard a couple of them now. Turning her focus to the sound she recognized one of the carpenters at the gate, not arguing with a delivery person so much as questioning him.

“You’re sure? I didn’t know anything about this load but okay, bring it on in. I can’t imagine what our freight charges are going to be getting back home, but that’s somebody else’s problem.”

The man looked up at her and waved, “Oi, Yoshino, I came back to pick up some stuff and found out there’s more cargo to add to the lot. I’m letting him in, okay?”

She nodded back, “Thanks for letting me know.”

After the guy had dropped of the additional lumber, Yoshino saw another figure approach.

Oh, crap.

Be careful what you wish for.

The chuunin had asked to work in pairs up since the storage lot was now so large and the stacks of lumber made observation difficult. So Mugato had said he’d set up a schedule starting today.

Crap.

One of the more unpleasant surprises on the outbound trip had been that the team wouldn’t consist of only the four chuunin and two jounin who had met in the assignment room five days ago. Tsuyoshi Uchiha, Mugato’s nephew was also on the team.

Apparently on the schedule she’d been assigned as his partner this first day.

She hoped the schedule allowed for some variability in the rotation. It would be a real pain in the butt to be stuck with this jerk the next, she counted quickly in her head, nine days.

“Yoshino-san,” he sneered, looking up at her.

“Tsuyoshi-san,” she acknowledged back, trying to keep the sneer out of her own voice, he wasn’t even worth that. Ever since they’d gotten here he’d been following her around, it seemed like he was always behind her, or at team meetings, crowding next to her more than absolutely necessary.

Since he was technically thirty minutes late for the start of this shift she thought she should fill him in on the comings and goings since she had gotten here. “Zatoshi the carpenter is in the storage shed picking up some tools and there was a delivery just before…”

He cut her off with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know, I saw it all back at the tent.”

Yoshino rolled her eyes. What a jerk. He didn’t even have a reason for being late, wasn’t even pretending to have one. He was what? All of twenty yards away, having his morning tea and just deciding when he’d get around to showing up for his assignment.

But then she sighed, there was no one to report him to, no one to complain to. She’d discovered very early on that he wasn’t even just from the same clan as Mugato, he was the man’s nephew.

She peered down at him from her perch up in the tree as he sat down against the fence opposite her. Dark hair, dark eyes and an utter jerk. How could he be the complete polar opposite of Shikaku?

Why couldn’t he have been one of the ones assigned to this trip?

At least there was one saving grace on the trip – so far there had been no call to “reception duty.” So even though there was grumbling among the rest of the chuunin about having to pack “gear” (she laughed to think of that dress as gear) they’d never use back and forth, still she was glad there had been and didn’t appear to be on the horizon any reason for her to have to get dressed up in front of Tsuyoshi again. She couldn’t say why that thought bothered her, it just did and that was enough.

Nine more days.

She was going to be slipping in and out of daydreams a lot.

Chapter 13: Off Like A Prom Dress

Shikaku stopped by the mission assignment room Monday morning, even though he knew he was already staffed to Tsunade for the foreseeable future. He was primarily interested in what Yoshino would be working on, but also to know where Chouza and Inoichi were heading out to, also.

The room was crowded, full of jostling shinobi. Mondays were always the worst. Lots of people would be heading out for multi-day missions so the crowd was usually thinner the rest of the week. He saw Yoshino but once again they were on opposite sides of the room. Chouza and Inoichi were behind him and their names were some of the first called. They were going out to a remote village near the border to help clear out a group of bandits who were harrassing villagers in the area. They’d been gone a few days, it looked like.

More names were called and more shinobi departed. He looked up at the clock, wondering how much time he could get away with and just how angry Tsunade would be if he kept her waiting. But as the room cleared it was easier for him to make his way over to Yoshino and he plunked down into the chair beside her.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi,” she smiled back at him, and added, “Well, I see you can get up and get dressed before you noon if you need to.”

He gave her a pretend scowl and whispered “Troublesome woman, I knew when I met you, you were nothing but trouble.” He twirled two fingers in her hair but let it slip quickly as she was called to go with the team assigned for the now-routine transport of craftsment back and forth between Wave. This group was larger than the original three-man team – there were now four chuunin counting Yoshino and a couple of older jounin that he vaguely recognized both of whom were wearing jackets with the Uchiha crest.

Since he already knew his own assignment, and thinking Tsunade would be ticked off enough already and that five minutes more wouldn’t make much difference, he got up and followed Yoshino out. The older of the two jounin was explaining the details of the mission to the group and Shikaku’s ears perked up. He thought he recognized the voice. Standing behind the newly assembled team, leaning up against the wall with his arms crossed, he listened more carefully and realized that he knew for a certainty who the voice belonged to – the ANBU jerk that had picked up his friends and then later Yoshino. A prickly sensation of suspicion ran down his spine as he wondered just what the odds were against this being a coincidence.

“You, Nara, don’t you have someplace to be?” the other jounin spoke up.

Shikaku just sighed and put his hands in his vest pockets and looked the guy in the eyes and answered, “No, no, not really. Lab can’t open ’til I get there.” He stared at the second Uchiha waiting to see who would blink first.

The older guy just motioned to the second one to leave it and then returned his attention to his team of chuunin.

“All right, standard escort duty – we’ll be out for two weeks and back for two, shuttling these builders back and forth. Actually we don’t expect too much trouble during the travel time. There are however some options for bidding on additional significant ocean front resorts and the chief negotiator for our team of contractors has told me that the competition is a little less than savory. So there will be additional bodyguard duties during this trip as well. You’ll be involved in those, meetings, dinner receptions, whatever our clients plan to attend, we need to plan to attend to. So, stop by the quartermaster’s and get yourselves outfitted appropriately. I don’t want you all showing up at a cocktail party in fishnet unless it’s the kunoichi in fishnet stockings, got that? Oh, and get a kunoichi-kit, too. We’ll meet our clients at 2p.m. Be ready to leave then.”

There was a general round of chuckles at his comment as the group broke up. Yoshino came over to him, “Shikaku,” she whispered, “why are you still here, won’t you be in trouble with Tsunade?”

Shikaku leaned back against the wall as if he needed to hold it up, holding her lightly by her forearms. “Just wanted to see where you were off to. You recognize that guy?” he asked motioning to the leader of her newly assembled team.

“He’s Mugato Uchiha. I haven’t worked with him before though…” she hesitated, “although I do recognize the voice.”

“Tch, well, me, too. Troublesome. Say, since you don’t have to leave until two, do you want to get together for lunch?” he asked.

Yoshino smiled, “Sure.”

After making plans for lunch, Shikaku rushed to the lab where fortunately, Tsunade didn’t seem to mind that he was nearly half an hour late . She was engaged in an animated conversation with the other two sannin and hardly noticed him when he arrived.

“Tsunade, you can’t deny what you saw…” Jiraiya began.

She quickly cut him off. “I KNOW what I saw. I just don’t know… what it means.” She huffed in exasperation, pushing her blonde hair back from her face. “Come on Shikaku, let’s open the door.” She turned her back on her old teammates and fumbled with her key in the lock.

“Tsunade,” his voice was genuinely soft and tender and for once it didn’t give Shikaku chills up his spine as Orochimaru spoke. “Tsunade…I know it’s hard to hear what he has to say but…for what it’s worth, I think Jiraiya is on to something.”

Shikaku stood rooted to the spot hardly daring to move more than his eyes as he cast his glance around at all three of his elders. Tsunade was rigid, wound tight as a watch spring, clutching the door handle in a death grip that he was sure was going to shatter it. Jiraiya seemed broken… empty, while Orochimaru had a look of desperation that Shikaku found as eerie as he usually found the raven-haired man’s voice.

“Get lost,” she said trying to sound lighthearted but her voice only came out brittle. “I’ve got work to do. I’ll see you two at lunch.” Her key clicked in the lock and she motioned for Shikaku to insert his own.

Eyes wide and mouth set in a firm line, Shikaku helped her open the door and the two of them went inside. Work that morning was incredibly subdued. Not that Tsunade was the most talkative woman around (for which he was quite thankful), but normally she was at least pleasant. Today she was thin-lipped and grim.

They worked silently for some time, Shikaku burning with curiosity to know what that was all about between the three earlier. But there was another, even more curious thing he wanted an answer to. It had been tickling in the back of his mind since the assignments this morning and he’d meant to ask her as soon as he’d gotten here. But all the bad vibes from the Sannin this morning had pushed that to the back of his mind.

Now it seemed like it might be as good of time as any. It seemed fairly far removed from whatever had set those three on edge. He cleared his throat and spoke up. “Tsunade, can I, um, ask you a question?”

Not looking up from the microscope she was currently adjusting, she merely answered, “Yeah, sure, what is it?”

“What’s a kunoichi kit?”

“Emergency contraception. Why?” She answered distractedly then paused and looked up at him, genuinely concerned. “Shikaku? Have you got some girl in trouble?”

“What?!? No, geez. No, I just…it just came up in conversation, that’s all.”

She studied him carefully. “Alright,” she said slowly, “if you say so.”

Shikaku was inwardly cursing himself. Clearly she didn’t believe him and the more he said that wasn’t the case the more she’d think it was. He looked at her, she was preparing to say more. Oh crap, here it comes – the lecture.

Tsunade made a great pretense of adjusting her focus on her microsope so that she wouldn’t have to look at Shikaku. “You know, Shikaku, any kunoichi can get them at the quartermaster’s but if it’s a village girl…that you know of…that you are acquainted with…,” she cleared her throat. “She can see me and I’ll get her a prescription.”

Well, hell, there was nothing he could say to that. The more he protested the more she’d think that’s why he was asking. He merely mumbled a “That’s good to know.”

Of course this did bring up the question of why Yoshino was assigned one, specifically told to get one by her team leader. What the fuck was up with that? That was something from like hundreds of years ago when kunoichi were used that way, wasn’t it?

“Tsunade?”

“Hmmmm?”

“Why would they be assigned on some missions?” He really couldn’t think of a way to ask other than to ask it directly.

Tsunade paused. “Well, a couple of reasons. In war zones where there are reports of mass rapes being used to demoralize a population, then even the kunoichi sent as part of a police force are subject to the same dangers as the population overall. In specific police cases, where you’re assisting police, a kunoichi who fits a certain type, look, might be used to lure a criminal into a situation where he can be captured, but that might endanger her as well. And then there’s the obvious and most common usage, protecting the young kunoichi from herself.”

“Huh? I don’t get it.”

Tsunade laughed. It was the first time he had seen an actual smile on her face all day. “That’s right, you never had a kunoichi on your team. It was always you, Yamanaka and Akamichi. How old are you now, Shikaku?”

“Nineteen, why?”

“Come back and ask me again in five or six years,” she smiled and wouldn’t say anymore on the subject.

Tch. Troublesome women. Acting like they know all the answers to all the mysteries of the cosmos.

Lunchtime came and he and Tsunade parted ways, locking the lab behind them. Sprinting to Yoshino’s house, since that’s where they had agreed to meet as he didn’t know what time he’d be able to get away, he knocked on the door and was pleased to see her in just a moment.

She had two bento boxes ready for them and they were going to take them back to the spot where they had watched the deer the day before. Wrong time of day for deer but still a nice place for lunch.

“Wait, before we go I want to show you something,” she said, smiling and going to the living room where her gear was out ready to pack up. “I have no idea how I’m going to pack this but still, see, isn’t it beautiful? I have it checked out for this trip in case we have any bodyguard duties at any evening events for the clients.” She was holding up a blue strapless gown on a hanger covered in a clear plastic bag.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” he answered, wondering how there had managed to be an entire kunoichi section of the quartermaster’s and indeed of the entire shinobi way of life that he’d managed to overlook until now. Of course he knew about girls and kunoichi and that there were Many Pleasant Things you could do with them and had pretty match participated in most of those in one state of sobriety of another. But the fact that they had a whole way of looking at the world that was uniquely there own had quite frankly, escaped him until now. Until now, it hadn’t really mattered because until now no kunoichi had really mattered before. Weird.

“Hmmm,” Yoshino seemed dissatisfied with his reaction. “Let me put it on. Looking at it through the plastic bag doesn’t do it justice.”

Before he could stop her and tell her not to bother it was too much trouble, she had slipped away. He waited, once again (why were you ALWAYS waiting on kunoichi?) and she finally appeared. She was right, the plastic bag absolutely did not do it justice.

It was a patterned blue satin, ruched at the top, cinched in at the waist and spilling to the floor like a waterfall. The skirt moved utterly fluid as she walked, like flowing water itself. Strapless, he was wondering what was holding it up until he realized that there was nothing holding it up but Yoshino. How did that work? Just what were the mechanics of a strapless gown? Speechless, he was afraid he was going to have to utter some appropriate remark of which he was utterly bereft. However, Yoshino seemed to have gotten what she wanted just by the way he was looking at her and so satisfied she said she’d change back and they’d go on out to lunch.

Even though the day was beautiful, the sky clear blue and full of fluffy white clouds and Yoshino was by his side for lunch, Shikaku was uneasy. There was just too much going on. Tch. Too much troublesome shit. The ANBU. The lab. The creepy ANBU guy being Yoshino’s leader this mission. The utter contempt which strapless evening gowns seemed to hold for the law of gravity.

And somewhere, in the pit of his stomach he had a sneaking suspicioun that he was beginning to see what Tsunade meant by protecting the young kunoichi from herself.

Chapter 12: Blue Morning, Blue Day

Exhausted, Yoshino looked around the room at the four masked faces. “I’m telling you, that’s all I know. I was with her the whole afternoon, she seemed fine. We went out to dinner and when we returned I took over the post that night. When I returned in the morning she was… Look!” she snapped, “we’ve been over this a dozen times already – we spent the entire day together. We ate at the same restaurant, I’ve given you the name. She seemed fine all day long – no symptoms of fever, nothing until we got back. What more do you want from me?”

“Sakamoto, this is an official investigation, I would have expected you to want to get to the bottom of your mission team leader’s death.” snapped back the voice of the jackal-masked ANUB, the one who had asked for her when she’d been picked up.

Sighing, Yoshino responded, “Of course, I’m just tired. Why’d you have to do this at midnight? And how many times are we going to go over the same things?”

“I think we are done with the questioning.” She thought the ANBU might actually be smiling behind his mask but it was tired and she honestly did not care. “We would like to put you in a light hypnotic state to see if there’s anything your conscious mind may have overlooked.”

Yoshino yawned, “Why didn’t you just do that in the first place,” she grumbled.

A second ANBU stepped forward and simply said, “I’m going to put you in a light trance…” and promptly did so. Yoshino felt light, warm, relaxed. She could hear her own voice sounding faint and far away as she answered their questions. It seemed to only take a few minutes and then she was shaking her head, almost as if waking up from a brief nap.

The first ANBU put his hand on her shoulder. “Thank you, Sakamoto. I know this must have been difficult for you. Are you going to the memorial service this afternoon?”

Yoshino nodded slightly, she hadn’t forgotten, she just hadn’t wanted to think about it.

After the door of the room had closed behind her the first ANBU, the one with the jackal-masked crossed his arms over his chest and turned to face his partner. “So, did she see anything?”

The second, wearing a black and white cat-faced mask shook his head, “No, she didn’t see anything that would concern us. Didn’t noticed any of the shipment back at the camp.” He laughed under his mask, “Although…she does think your nephew is a jerk.”

It was hard to tell it but the first one rolled his eyes under his mask. “She isn’t the first girl to think that. Just as long as he doesn’t do anything to cause us any problems…”

“Right,” responded the second, “just as long…”

Sleep did not come easy to her that night, much to her surprise. Walking home in the dark after midnight her mind had been busy turning over the events back in Wave, wondering if there was anything she might have missed. What sleep she did manage to get was fitful, knowing that when she got up in the morning, she was going to have to go to Asako’s memorial service.

Asako! Anko! She got up out of bed and rummaged through the bag that was still lying in her closet that she had brought back from Wave. There in the bottom of the bag was the little pink coin purse Asako had bought for Anko. Yoshino cried, knowing she would have to be the one to give it to the little girl rather than her own mother.

Morning came and still exhausted, Yoshino rose and put on her black dress. It was a fact of shinobi life that black clothing was a standard part of the wardrobe, not your everyday wear, but often enough, too often as a matter of fact.

She was ready early, the service wasn’t for a couple more hours yet. Wondering what to do with herself, she found that she had wandered over near Shikaku’s apartment. She knocked at the door and after a moment he answered it, wearing pajama pants and no shirt.

“Yoshino! Come in,” he said opening the door wide to welcome her. He’d been worried and pissed off too about the ANBU business last night, and meaning to go by her house and check on her today to see how it went. Then he noticed her dark outfit.

“Oh, is Miterashi’s memorial today,” he asked feeling somewhat at a loss. Unless it was a high ranking person, someone known throughout the village, memorial services tended to be smaller family affairs. Of course, Yoshino had said she wasn’t all that close to Asako, but still , having been on her last misson with the woman just before…Well, it only made sense that she’d go.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…wake you… ,” she said taking in his pajamas, oddly amused by the fact that it was getting close to noon and he was still wearing them.

“What, oh, no, I was awake,” he mumbled wiping a hand over his face. “Come on in, do you want some coffee?”

She sat at the small table as he brought them two cups of coffee. “Cream? Or sugar?” he asked.

“No, just black is fine,” she replied hesitantly taking a sip but finding it to be not all that bad.

Shikaku was relieved because he wasn’t sure if there was any cream and if there was if it was spoiled or not. He was also rather unsure of the location of sugar in the apartment. He thought they might have some but had no idea where it was.

They talked for a bit and then Yoshino asked, “Do you…are you busy…today?” She really hoped he wasn’t busy and that maybe he would come with her this afternoon because this was honestly something she did not want to go to by herself. “Do you think you could go with me?”

“Sure,” he replied softly. “Sure, I can go. Let me go get changed.” He kissed the top of her head before he left the table.

A short while later he emerged freshly showered and wearing his own black tunic and hakama. To his surprise, Chouza and Inoichi were both up, eating rolled omelets and rice.

“She’s great, Shikaku, can we keep her?” Chouza smiled and mumbled through a mouthful of rice and egg.

Shikaku scowled wanting to pipe back that no they could not keep her when Yoshino spoke up, “Don’t talk with your mouthful, Chouza.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” Shikaku motioned at the table.

Shrugging Yoshino answered, “They were hungry and I needed something to do. Do you want something to eat?”

“Ummm, … yeah,” he answered sheepishly. She smiled and prepared another omelet.

The service that afternoon was brief, but mournful. At the end of the ceremony, Yoshino and Shikaku spoke to Asako’s husband. “I, um, I have a … I was with Asako…that is…” Yoshino was stumbling over her words as she spoke to the man. Taking a deep breath she managed to complete her sentence. “I was with Asako in Wave. We went shopping and she had a present for Anko – I had it in my bags when I came back.” She handed the small package over to him.

“Why don’t you give it to her?” he said, motioning down to the little four year old girl who was doing her best to stand still beside him. “I’m sure she’d like to know her mother’s friend brought to her.”

Yoshino knelt down, Shikaku’s fingertips at her shoulders. “Hello, Anko,” she whispered.

“Are you a friend of my mother’s?” the little girl asked and Yoshino nodded.

“Are you a kunoichi like her?” Again, Yoshino nodded trying not to cry in front of her.

Anko pointed to herself with her own thumb, “I’m gonna be a kunoichi just like Omaasan, too.” she said proudly.

“Yes, Anko-chan, yes you are,” Yoshino agreed. “Here, your mother bought you a present and I’m just delivering it for her,” she floundered not knowing what else to say.

Anko opened the small package and held out the pink purse proudly. “Otousan! Look!” she said proudly holding it up and waving it.

“Yes, Anko-chan, I see. It’s very nice. Now we have to let them go on. We have other guests to greet.” He turned his attention to Yoshino and Shikaku. “She…doesn’t fully understand. I think she just thinks her mother is on a mission.”

The two younger shinobi nodded and offered their condolences and left. Walking along with her hand in hand, an idea came to Shikaku of just the right place to take her. “Come on,” he said, pulling her by the wrist.

Stopping back by his apartment to change he rummaged around for something for her also. Laughing and glad that he’d managed to do laundry a couple of days ago, he came up with a t-shirt that had shrunk when he’d washed it in the hot water and a pair of pants that sort of fit as long as she looped a belt around her waist a couple of times to hold them up and turned the cuffs up about six inches.

Looking at him askance, hardly daring to believe she was going outside with him dressed like this, Yoshino said, “You have got to be kidding me. I am not going out in public dressed this way.”

“You won’t be in public and besides, I don’t want you to get your dress dirty. Come on.” And taking her by her wrist again, they flew through the streets and bounded off into the direction of his clan’s lands.

He finally paused the two of them at the edge of a wooded area where it met a meadow. Flopping down on his back at the beginning of the grassy area he motioned for him to join her.

“What?” she asked, curious.

“Just sit. Lie back. Look at clouds, trees, whatever.”

“I can’t just sit.”

“Yes you can.”

“No, really, I cannot just sit still.” She laughed. “I just can’t. I have to be doing something.”

“Yes, you can,” he laughed back at her, pulling her down beside him, “for me.”

Yoshino sighed, and lay on her back, her head resting on his chest looking up at the clouds with him. She dozed off feeling his fingers ruffling in her hair, light breeze playing across the two of them in the late afternoon sunshine.

Sometime later she awoke to realize that the sun had almost set, shadows lengthened and it was near dusk. She realized that Shikaku must have been awake earlier and shifted to a sitting position with her head in his lap. She started to sit up but he put one hand on her shoulder holding her firmly down and a second finger to his lips instructing her to keep quiet.

Slowly and quietly she sat up and turned to face the same direction as he was, feeling his arm slip warm around her waist, pulling her to him. A soft whisper of a gasp escaped her lips as she saw the deer slipping from the shadows one by one to gaze in the sweet grass of the meadow. Shikaku kissed her on the cheek and murmured warmly in her ear, “See? There are some things you can only do if you’re still.”

Chapter 11: Caught Up In You

Shikaku rolled out of bed, thankfully the sun was up, not o-dark-thirty like every other morning this week. Tsunade, bless her, had said they should take a day off. He sat on the edge of his bed, trying to clear his head.

Had last night been some type of weird dream? He shook his head, cobwebs finally clearing. No, it had been real enough. But what had it really been about? Was Jiraiya seriously implying that the source of all this was one of the Hidden Villages? More than one? Was he actually even suggesting that…

Bullshit. It was all bullshit. Had to be. They were just stoned and talking big.

He thought back over the previous night’s conversation and kept coming back to the image of Inoichi’s face, wide-eyed as Jiraiya carried on. Something about that image angered him, made him mad that Inoichi might even consider doing something that stupid. Stupid puppy.

“Inoichi!” he barked as he slammed open his friend’s bedroom door. “Get your lazy ass out of bed!”

“Shit, man, lemme sleep,” Inoichi mumbled pulling a pillow over his head.

“Now, get your lazy bones moving,” Shikaku laughed, pulling the sheets off his friend, “You two have been gone a whole week and I’ve been cooped up in a lab and we need to train. C’mon, let’s go down to the training field and spar, taijutsu only.”

Inoichi grumbled, sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes. “What is with you, man?”

Chouza appeared at the door, “What’s going on?”

“Shikaku has lost his mind,” Inoichi yawned and jerked his thumb toward his friend. “It’s Saturday morning and he wants to go goof around, sparring and shit.”

“C’mon, you guys. I have been inside for an entire week…,” Shikaku started.

“With Tsunade.” Chouza added helpfully. Inoichi smirked, wiping the last of the sleep from his eyes.

“Unpacking and running cables and piddly shit. Stuck inside for a whole week…,” Shikaku ignored the interruption.

“With Tsunade’s tits.” Inoichi chimed in.

“And I just need to beat the crap out of something, preferably your sorry hide Inoichi,” Shikaku snapped, but by this time he was smiling, too.

Inoichi draped one arm over his black-haired friend’s shoulders. “Too much pent up energy, face it, Shikaku, bro, you need to get laid.”

“Agreed,” Chouza said, “However, I suppose you’ll have to settle for getting your butt kicked, Shikaku. C’mon, let’s get breakfast on the way.”

After breakfast the three friends made their way to their favorite training grounds. “Taijutsu only,” Shikaku said, facing Inoichi first.

Taijutsu only with Chouza was pretty much a lost cause – Chouza could whip him in fairly short order. But with Inoichi it was usually a more involved match – they were more evenly matched despite the blonde’s few centimeters on him. He could work up a good sweat with Inoichi and still stand a reasonable chance of beating him. And he did want to beat him. Something about that look in his eyes bothered Shikaku no end, Yamanaka should know better than to even think about wanting any shit like that.

They started with some basic kicks and blocks, Shikaku grinning because even though he’d said taijutsu only and he would never cheat on Inoichi, the taller boy just couldn’t get it through his head sometimes that Shikaku couldn’t turn his own shadow “off.” It threw him off, adjusting for a greater reach than what Shikaku really had. And the earlier in the morning or the later in the evenings they worked out together, the greater the effect.

The two of them were really getting into a good sweat by now, Shikaku able to land a couple of good solid punchs because Inoichi was blocking a fraction of an inch off, thrown off by his shadow.

Inoichi managed to get in a good kick on Shikaku that caused him to stagger back. “Hah! pencil-dick!” he shouted.

Shikaku caught his balance and kicked back feeling the resounding thud as he came into contact with Inoichi’s thigh. “Bishi-boy,” he chided. He came in close for another punch which Inoichi couldn’t block.

The last failed block caused Yamanak to lose his balance and fall on his ass. “Cheater,” he laughed looking up at Shikaku.

Shikaku smiled, “Liar, I never once used ninjutsu.” He held his hand out, leaning forward to help his friend up.

And promptly lost his own balance as he fell face forward into the image of Tsunade’s bosom generated by Inoichi’s genjutsu. He only managed to catch himself from falling on top of Inoichi by using his shadow to brace against the ground.

“Fucker! You’re a one-trick pony, Inoichi. Can’t you come up with anything other than Tsunade’s tits?”

Inoichi was on his back, laughing up at him, “Whazzat? Shikaku? Couldn’t hear you.”

Shikaku was bent forward, hands on his thighs, catching his breath. It had been a good workout overall. “Tsunade’s tits, it’s gettin’ a little old don’t you think? Can’t you come up with something else.” In the background he saw Chouza waving to him, he lifted one hand in reply.

Inoichi was curling up in laughter. “I still couldn’t hear you!”

Shikaku had caught his breath enough to yell “TSUNADE’S TITS! Getting a little old, don’t you think?”

Inoichi was apoplectic, tears of laughter streaming from his eyes. Chouza was waving frantically to him.

Shit.

Shikaku took a deep breath, hands still on his thighs. “Motherf-, she’s right behind me, isn’t she?”

Inoichi just nodded weakly.

Shikaku straightened slowly. He looked carefully over his shoulder. Shit.

The three legendary sannin stood on the embankment leading down to their training grounds. Jiraiya was leaning his forehead against Orochimaru’s shoulder, laughing hysterically. Tsunade stood with her arms crossed over her chest, tapping her foot furiously. Even Orochimaru was smiling at him.

“Shikaku, could I have a word with you for a minute, please?” She called down to him.

“Uh…yeah…sure,” he dusted his hands against his pants leg and groaned. Before he started to walk up the embankment he hissed down at his friend, “Payback’s a bitch, Yamanaka.”

Reluctantly, he ascended the small hill. “Yes, Tsunade, what is it?”

“I just needed to let you know that I’m going to be gone for a bit – definitely tomorrow, maybe Monday, too.” She scowled over one shoulder looking back at the cackling Jiraiya and the smirking Orochimaru. “I have some information I need to follow up on with these two,” she said, jerking one thumb back and pointing at her teammates. “I’ll send for you when we get back.”

“Yeah, um, sure, okay,” he answered, not really able to think of anything else to say. With her gone, there was nothing he could do in the lab by himself. “Is there anything you want me to work on outside the lab?” he asked.

She shook her head, “Nothing right now, if something comes up I’ll get a message to you.”

He agreed and they bid each other goodbye. Before he left, Jiraiya called back, “Remember, Shikaku, keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.” Then laughingly he added, “For your own good.”

Tsunade, between her two friends, whacked the back of Jiraiya’s head with one hand. Then just for good measure she whacked the back of Orochimaru’s, too. As they walked off into the distance Shikaku heard a faint round of name calling from all three sannin that sounded remarkably like him with his own teammates.

Shikaku, having caught his breath and collected his thoughts, launched himself back down the hill, determined to show Inoichi that payback was, indeed, a bitch.

Later that afternoon, after he’d showered and changed, Shikaku left his friends back at the apartment to pick up some lunch and run some errands, the most important of which was to buy Yoshino a birthday present.

He smiled to himself, yes, they actually had “a date” tonight. She’d teased him, asking if he was sure it was actually a date this time, since he’d made such a fuss about it in front if Inoichi and Chouza last time. And he’d teased her right back by shutting her up with a kiss, like the first time, which she didn’t seem to mind at all.

So, running a hand back through his hair again, he looked at the line of shops in one of the main shopping centers in Konoha. Where to start?

Clothes? Well, he had no idea where to begin there, not sizes or styles, nada. Books? Hah, Inoichi had a better chance picking out something she’d like. He had a sneaking suspicion that he could drop the two of them off in a bookstore together for hours and they’d spend the time poring over Gojiro merchandise like two little kids in a toy store. Jewelry? Maybe?

He stopped in front of a jewelry store, an assortment of items displayed in the glass front cases. He went in the store, completely unsure of himself, never having purchased jewelry before other than his own earring, and never for a girl, certainly not a girlfriend (there was that word again) but the clerk was more than happy to assist. A short while later he emerged with a long slender velvet box feeling very satisfied with himself and hoping that Yoshino would like the bejeweled hairpins he had chosen.

They were 6″ long of black bone with a lacquer finish that sparkled in the light. Each was topped with a blue lampwork bead and an ornate silver filigree bead cap with crystal separating the beaded top from the bone of the hairsticks themselves. Silver plated blue heishi beads dangled from the top of each one.

He really hoped she’d like them because he had no idea what else to get her. When the clerk had asked him to describe the girl he was shopping for, all he kept coming back to was her sleek, long black hair. Shikaku was a little bit nervous because he had no idea how these things worked, how could two plain sticks hold up a curtain of hair like hers anyway? But the clerk had reassurred him that they would work and Shikaku had completed his purchase and left.

Back at her house, Yoshino waffled for about 1 minute in indecision over what to wear. She took out her new outfit, the cloud dragon tunic, she’d bought to wear thinking of Shikaku and she was damned if she was going to think one more second’s thought about grabby-boy Tsuyoshi trying to paw her in it. She slipped it on, loving the feel of the silk as it slid cool against her skin.

She combed her hair and pinned it back neatly with two barrettes and surveyed her look in there mirror. Satisified, she began to search around for her shoes. With one in her hand she searched for the other one under her bed, stretching to reach it as she heard the doorbell ring. Startled she jumped up and slipped the shoes on, starting towards the doors.

Earrings! She didn’t have earrings yet! She dashed to her jewelry box, looking for simple silver studs to match her outfit. She could hear muffled conversation below as her mom and dad talked to Shikaku. She smirked, well, she’d told them her date was a jounin, she just hadn’t told them he was older than her, than any other boy she’d ever brought home. She wondered what they’d think of his beard.

Rushing to her bedroom door she had to make herself not go running down the stairs. Shikaku looked up and she smiled to see the way he was looking at her. She’d take that as approval of her outfit. After an awkward round of introductions, the two of them left for dinner.

The restaurant was quiet, dark and intimate. Little candles flickered on the tables, casting a golden glow around the diners. Yoshino loved the place, loved talking with Shikaku, loved how he had one elbow on the table, his chin in that hand leaning forward and talking to her, listening to her, loved everything about the night with him.

Shikaku was totally captivated as well, watching her eyes sparkle in the candlelight, hearing her laugh, seeing how the light caught on her hair and made it shine…

Her hair!

He’d forgotten to give her her present. Reaching into a pocket on his vest he drew out the velvet box and slid it toward her. “Here,” he said, “Happy Birthday.”

Yoshino beamed. “Thank you!” then opening the box she gasped in surprise. “Oh, Shikaku, they’re beautiful, thank you!” She held them up in the light, noting how the crystal caught and scattered the glow. “I’ll… if you’ll excuse me…I’ll… I’ll just go put them in, okay?”

He smiled and just nodded and watched her walk away. He was glad she liked them.

A few moments later she returned but the transformation was remarkable, something he had completely not expected. The little silver barrettes at the sides were gone, her hair no longer swaying to her waist. Instead it was swept up elegantly, knotted and held in place by the jeweled hairsticks, silver beads catching the light as she walked. A few stray tendrils twined down on either side of her face, framing it artfully.

Shikaku was wondering if simply being a kunoichi was its own brand of genjutsu. Which one was his date – the girl he’d brought in here or this elegant young woman? Or both? How’d she do that?

“So, um, how do they look?” she asked shyly, casting her gaze down, waiting for his answer.

The effect was striking. Shikaku thought he would do anything, say anything to have her simply look back up at him now. “You look beautiful,” he said hoarsely, reaching across the table to cover her hand with his own. He wanted to leave now, to take her with him now, to simply take her…

Where?

Back to his apartment with his party boy roommates? Sure, he’d brought girls back to the apartment before. Inoichi may have been more prolific but he and Chouza weren’t completely shut out in the girl department. Of course those girls tended to be more of the party girl variety.

Back to her house with her mom and dad?

WTF? What did you do with a young kunoichi?

It didn’t matter – he just wanted to leave now, to be alone with her now, anywhere, just a walk, just anywhere to be where he could hold her. Arm in arm they left the restaurant, strolling in the moonlight. They neared the walls of the village, casting flickering shadows as they passed streetlights. He stopped and pulled her to him, kissing her deeply.

Yoshino circled her arms behind his neck, pulling herself up against him. Sliding his hands down over the cool silk, he slipped them up under her tunic, sliding up until he reached the warmth of her skin at her waist. Further still, one hand covered her breast, thumb circling the center. She moaned into his kiss, turning her head slightly and he kissed roughly, hungrily down her neck across her shoulder.

Daring to, she skimmed her own hands down his body, coming to rest at his waist, fingers tickling along the waistband of his pants. He held her by her hips then, pulling her against him. She could feel his hardness pressed against her, it both frightened and emboldened her to know what she could do, what she was doing to him.

“Yoshino,” he rumbled against her ear, “Yoshino, I…”

“Yoshino Sakamoto?” a masculine voice that he thought he faintly recognized jolted Shikaku. He and Yoshino disentangled themselves from each other to stare at the two ANBU who had appeared.

“Could you come with us, please? We have some questions for you.”

Yoshino looked at Shikaku, eyes wide having no idea what was going on. “I’ll um, I’ll see you later, okay?” she whispered to Shikaku.

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he mumbled watching her as she walked off into the night with the two ANBU.

Fucking hell?

Chapter 10: Jiraiya Tells The Rest Of The Story

Shikaku surveyed the apartment – although certainly not clean by any stretch of the imagination, it was at least a helluva lot better than it had been the last few days. At least you could walk through the place without tripping now – he’d spent the last couple of hours trying to stuff shit back into its appropriate shelf or drawer.

He’d actually even done laundry this afternoon – rounding up everything of Inoichi’s and throwing it in a pile on the guy’s bed and doing the same for Chouza’s crap. Then he’d stuffed all his own clothes into a duffle bag and hauled them downstairs to the laundry room in the apartment building’s basement.

He had to give Tsunade credit – once things were up and running she kept to a much more manageable schedule. Today they’d collected some gas chromatograph information and set up some extractions to run over night. They’d actually gotten out of there at 4pm today – unbelievable. He’d swung by the mission room and checked – Chouza and Inoichi were inbound as of today. Yoshino was on a day mission – she wouldn’t be back until later in the evening.

Well, he hadn’t made plans with her until Saturday because he hadn’t known what his schedule would be like. So that left him the whole evening to hang out with his two teammates and catch up once they got home. Which wasn’t a bad thing. Not at all. Especially if they were able to bring a little something back.

He frowned. He wasn’t sure what the status of things were now. Chouza and Inoichi had certainly had their hands slapped last go around. Maybe they wouldn’t try to buy this trip. He frowned again – if their seller was even still doing business.

The door to the apartment opened and true to his nature Inoichi bounded in yelling “Hand check!” and wrestled him to the floor. Freakin’ golden retriever puppy. A slightly (only slightly) more subdued Chouza was right behind him, heading for the fridge and looking for a beer.

Inoichi seemed disappointed that Shikaku didn’t have his “little girl friend” up here with him, as he referred to her, emphasizing the words in a way that implied something that was not the case. Shikaku just rolled his eyes. He also scowled when he saw where the two had dropped their bags and made a mental note to tell them to pick it up later and put their shit in their own rooms.

The three friends messed around in the kitchen and finally pulled together a meal, grilling outside since the weather was warm.

After dinner, as the twilight lengthened they sat around inside, shooting the breeze and catching up on the last week’s events. Shikaku gathered that since neither of them had lit up yet, they hadn’t resupplied on their latest mission. But the beer was cold and the evening was warm and the three of them were planning what to do for the rest of the night other than just sitting around shooting the breeze.

The question of what to do with the rest of their evening was answered when they heard a *poof* and a hearty greeting, “Good evening boys, how’s it going?”

“The hell-?” Inoichi jumped out of his seat, the sound had come from just behind him. Shikaku just stared open-mouthed unable to believe what he was seeing.

Jiraiya-sama and Orochimaru-sama stood in his living room.

“Jiraiya, you could just use a door like a normal person,” Orochimaru said in a bored tone.

“Fuck me…,” Shikaku spluttered.

“Hadn’t planned on it, kid,” Jiraiya quipped, “Say, aren’t you going to introduce us?”

Shikaku stood speechless. Finally he found his voice and motioned weakly around the room, “Um, guys, this is Jiraiya-sama and Orochimaru-sama. Um, sirs, these are my roommates, Chouza Akamichi and Inoichi Yamanaka.” There, was that proper enough because his head was spinning and he sure as hell couldn’t remember what protocol called for in this situation.

He thought about muttering some inane pleasantries like ‘please have a seat’ or ‘can I get you something to drink’ but that problem was solved when Jiraiya plopped down into a chair, drew out his pipe and said, “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em boys.”

The quietness that descended over the room was profound. Even if they did have any weed on them, they sure as hell weren’t going to light up with the sannin present.

“My, my, Jiraiya, it appears you were right again. ANBU is raining on everyone’s parade. I wonder why?” The voice was soft but it sent chills down Shikaku’s spine. He shuddered.

Jiraiya packed his pipe away and drew out something else. “Guess I’ll have to chase the clouds away, huh, Orochimaru?” He opened the pouch he’d taken from his pocket and rolled a joint. After lighting it and taking a deep draw off it he held it out to Shikaku.

“Shit…,” Shikaku muttered, “Would you mind telling me why you’re here in my living room lighting up with me and my friends?”

“It’s a strategy session,” Jiraiya responded, laughing, “and I need you in a strategic state of mind. Besides, great ice-breaker don’t you think?”

“Honestly…,” Orochimaru snapped, snatching the joint out of Jiraiya’s hand as Shikaku hesitated. “you’d think it was going to bite you.”

Jiraiya looked up at his teammate in glee. “Orochimaru – I didn’t know you were smoking tonight.”

“Only because I’ll need to be as strategic as they are in order to get through your explanation again,” he muttered, drawing deeply then passing the joint to Shikaku.

Warily accepting it, closing his eyes and taking his first hit off of it, Shikaku was overcome with the sense of surrealism. He must be dreaming. That was it, sleep deprivation over the last few days. He exhaled, opened his eyes and looked around the room, handing the joint to Inoichi. No. They were all still there. Two of the sannin. In his living room. Getting high. With him.

Jiraiya waited until the joint had been passed back to him. “So, tell us what you’re working on Shikaku.”

Shikaku shifted uneasily on the couch. “You, um, you know I can’t do that.”

“Good boy,” Jiraiya smiled, “So, how about if I tell them, and you can fill in any gaps if I leave anything out?”

Shikaku hesitated, technically the project hadn’t gone black until the day the door with the funky double-keyed lock was activated. And technically nobody had told him that it was classified before that day. So technically if Jiraiya already knew all that stuff the night he and Orochimaru had dropped the samples off then what they knew wasn’t black and could be told, right?

Shikaku nodded and Jiraiya promptly filled in the background for Chouza and Inoichi. Shikaku didn’t have a problem with the lab description or anything that first night. But when he started to go into the pill’s effects which Shikaku had learned the second day, he shifted uncomfortably and started to say something. This seemed to be hovering dangerously close to the “classified” part.

“Think I shouldn’t go any further, Shikaku?” Jiraiya asked softly.

Shikaku cleared his throat. “Well, um, I think you are getting into what I was told was the classified portion of the project.”

Jiriaya’s eyes twinkled. “Well, nobody told me it was classified, and since I’ve gotten my information independently, I’ll just keep going, okay?” And even though the inflection made it sound like a question, Shikaku knew that it was an order.

And Jiraiya filled Chouza and Inoichi in on the effects and side effects of the drug. Chouza had about the same level of concern that Shikaku recalled feeling when he first heard about it. But Inoichi sat very still, the word still on his lips, Tsukyomi.

“What is it, Inoichi?” Shikaku remembered that that was the thing he was going to ask Inoichi when he got back. He waited for his friend’s reply.

“It’s a … an alternate dimension, generated, you can … twist space and time, to the wielder’s wishes. But that’s only something Sharingan users can do.”

Jiraiya just smiled. “Until now, that was true. But with this handy little pill, a high-level genjutsu user, a true adept, would be able to invoke Tsukyomi, too. There’s just one tiny little hitch…”

Shikaku spoke up quickly, interrupting Jiraiya, not liking the look on Inoichi’s face, “Addiction. Complete dependence. True. Phsyiological. You have to keep taking it or you die.”

“But who would do such a thing? Why create it?” Chouza asked.

“Why indeed? Ask Inoichi. Would there be a market for it?” Jiraiya replied.

Inoichi shook his head, “Fuck, yeah, if it works as advertised.”

Shikaku sat on the couch, something still not making sense no matter how ’strategic’ he was at the moment. So what? So why the fuck was Jiraiya here, telling Chouza and Inoichi exactly the same thing Tsunade had told him in the lab yesterday?

Maybe it was the grass or maybe he was just a little bit pissed off to be put in this absurd situation, but regardless, he said so. Out loud.

“So, fuckit, man, you’re just, you’re just saying the exact same shit Tsunade said yesterday. Just to my roommates okay, no big, but fuck, what’s the big deal?”

Orochimaru, now sitting beside Jiraiya, cocked an eyebrow and gave him a faint smile. He turned to look at his own teammate. “I think he wants to know what you’re going to add to Tsunade’s version of events, Jiraiya. I think he’s demanding it.”

“This drug didn’t just show up, overnight, okay?” The boys nodded in unison, eyes wide. “It’s been designed. Targeted to work a certain way. Targeted to provide a specific benefit at an outrageous cost. It took a lot of effort and a lot of resources and a lot of money to go into producing something like this.”

Shikaku thought of Tsunade’s lab and nodded vigorously in agreement, no doubt about that.

“So, who has those types of resources?”

Shikaku’s head wasn’t working all that well, being a tad bit “strategic” by now, plus a little bit high. He could come up with the names of a couple of industrial candidates, maybe one of the larger drug cartels. He threw those names out.

Jiraiya smiled, good try he told him, but still, think outside the box.

Shikaku racked his brain – it must be right in front of him, Jiraiya was smirking at him like he should have come up with it by now. He reached to take the joint from Inoichi again and took another hit. He almost laughed, shit, if the other guesses were wrong, then the only other thing he could think of with enough resources able to pull off something like this would be a government. Laughingly he said so as he passed the cigarette back to Chouza.

“Bingo.” Jiraiya said simply.

Shikaku laughed. Seriously – it was absurd. He said so.

“Absurd, really?” Jiraiya asked. “Who else has the resources?”

“But…why?”

“You can be sure that when defense becomes an industry, the underlying motive becomes profit. I can tell you right now, in every council hall of the five great nations, wherever there’s a hidden village their greatest concern is ‘Oh my God, peace might break out.’”

Shikaku started to protest but Jiraiya held up his hand to silence them. “Governments have the resources to pull it off. They have intelligence gathering organizations, like ANBU,” he nodded his chin toward Chouza and Inoichi, “to learn the trafficking network between villages and nations, and they have enforcement, the police force to handle information and distribution internally to a nation, a village.”

“Control something like this and you have an enormous amount of power. You can introduce it to an area and then withdraw it, leaving victims to their own painful death by withdrawal or else blackmail them for a regular supply. You can sow fear between opposing nations that one side’s genjutsu users have powered up and they need to get in the game to compete. Produce and control something like this and you have sway over our entire way of life.”

“But Tsunade…” Shikaku started.

“Tsunade doesn’t want to face the facts that it is very likely shinobi behind this. Shinobi stand to benefit the most from maintaining the status quo. This drug and others like it make that possible. Tsunade doesn’t want to admit that …”

“Tsunade doesn’t want to admit that a fish rots from the head down!” Orochimaru snapped. “And I wonder if you do?”

Jiraiya looked away. Orochimaru was glaring at his friend’s back, almost daring him, begging him to turn around and face him. Shikaku was quite sure that this ranked right up there with the look Jiraiya gave Tsunade the other day as one of the saddest things he’d ever seen.

“So what do you need me, us, to do?” Shikaku asked.

It took Jiraiya a moment to respond. “Just do what you normally do. Go to work at the lab. Go on missions. Bring back ’souvenirs’. Just let me know if there’s anything you see unusual from your routine. That’s all I ask. For now.”

Chapter 9: Hold Me Now

Shikaku looked at the clock, 1am again, shit! This was becoming surreal. He didn’t know why Tsunade didn’t just order up a cot and keep him there around the clock. He grinned, now that would give them something to talk about, wouldn’t it? Inoichi, Chouza, heh, Jiraiya, yeah, let ‘em talk.

Tsunade was waiting impatiently at the door yet again, tapping her foot, hurrying him up. Just like a woman, he thought, keep you there forever, then when it’s time to go it’s time to go and why the hell aren’t you ready yet?

He searched around for his house keys, where the hell had he left them? Briefly, Shikaku thought about waving her on, he’d find the damn house keys and lock up later. Then he caught himself. Stupid Nara.

Starting today, it took two keys to open the lab door, two keys to lock it. Tsunade had one, he had the other. There had to be two people in the lab at all times. Of course, the stated reason for this was that it reduced the chances of someone stealing a key and entering – they’d have to steal two keys from two separate shinobi. The unstated, and therefore real reason, though was that there always had to be two of you in the lab – keeping an eye on each other.

He found the keys and walked out with Tsunade to lock up. They bid each other good night, agreed to meet at 7(again!) in the morning and then went their separate ways. The cool night air was refreshing, it woke him up, even if just for a bit.

He thought he’d do something he’d been meaning to do for a couple of days now, since Monday, and that was to check out the duty roster and find out where Yoshino was, and Inoichi and Chouza too, while he was at it. He sauntered on over to the mission assignment room, there was always somebody there who could look it up for him.

Once in the room, he scanned the list, looking for Yoshino Sakamoto and found her name and that she was listed out on escort duty to Wave for a couple more days. And as another interesting note, he saw that yesterday was her birthday. Well, actually, day-before-yesterday since it was now past freaking midnight. But still, he thought, it would give him one more reason to ask her out again when she got back.

He saw that Inoichi and Chouza were out until tomorrow (today, tonight, whatever, dammit he was tired!) They’d had to courier some scrolls to Amagakure. Must be fairly important documents if they were using two jounin just for courier duty. It nagged at him that they’d been sent back to Rain. Probably just coincidence, he was just tired, dreaming stuff up.

He yawned and stretched and poured himself half a cup of the noxious brew in the coffee pot that had undoubtedly been sitting there for several hours. After one sip he winced and poured the rest down the drain. Hell, he didn’t care if he fell asleep walking home, no way was he drinking that. It wasn’t worth lying awake jazzed up if you were jazzed on motor fuel. Bleah.

Just then he turned around and saw… Yoshino. A very disheveled Yoshino with red-rimmed eyes. There was some tall dark-haired guy with her and they were being accompanied by a mission debriefing specialist. This did not look good. Something must have gone wrong.

He hurried over to her and spoke, “Hey, Yoshino, you back early?”

She turned toward him, “Oh, Shikaku, we…we…we had a casualty, a death on the team. On team leader…” her voice trailed off.

“Who?” he asked. Damn. This was never good news. But what could have happened? They were just shepherding a bunch of construction people. He hadn’t heard of anything of concern going on in the area.

“It was… Asako, Asako Miterashi did you know her?”

He shook his head. The name was somewhat familiar but he really didn’t know her. “What happened?’ he asked.

“She was…she was sick…night before last. I was on guard duty that night. She wasn’t feeling well when I left to stand my post. In the morning we found her, in the tent, she was…she must have died in her sleep.”

“Oh man, I’m sorry. Were you two close?”

Yoshino shook her head. “Not really – I’d gone on a couple of missions with her before, but no, not really, it’s just that it’s so, sudden, you know?”

Shikaku nodded “So, they pulled you out?”

“Yes, they sent a new team when…”

He just nodded again. She didn’t need to finish that sentence, he knew she meant they’d sent a new team when they’d come to get the body. Typical if they weren’t in the middle of a war and could spare the shinobi. They would review all they could with the remaining team members. But, shit, what a way to go, not even in a battle or anything, just …ill.

“So, are you finished with the debriefing? Do you want to get coffee or something? Go somewhere and talk?”

She smiled up at him. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

It was 1:30 in the morning and he was going to have to be back at it at 7am with Tsunade. But for now it didn’t matter. Idly he thought that maybe he could get through tomorrow with soldier pills, but then hastily dismissed that idea in light of his earlier discussion with Tsunade and Jiraiya. So, maybe he’d go through a couple of pots of coffee tomorrow, drink up all of Tsunade’s tea. Yoshino was back and even if it was the middle of the night, he was going to get to spend some time with her.

They walked over to an all-night cafe and slipped into a booth there. Yoshino asked him how his last few days had been and he filled her in on what little he could about the job, what he was allowed to tell. The awkwardness of it began to sink in to him – it hadn’t really mattered so much with her and Chouza and Inoichi all out of town the last few days, but how did you go about this business of being on a classified mission and not being able to talk about it with your friends, your teammates, your …girlfriend?

Well, that was an interesting word – how had it slipped in there?

But back to his predicament – he had been on classified/clandestine missions before – plenty of them – but always with Chouza and Inoichi. And they were always away from Konoha. It was …weird …to be working on something right here and not be able to tell anybody about it.

“And you’re working on this …project…with Tsunade?” she asked, her eyes flicking over as if she was looking at something just past his shoulder then they flicked back up to meet his. “Anybody else?”

He had one elbow on the table, his head propped up on that wrist. Poor kid, he thought, she looked as sleepy as he felt. “Yeah, with Tsunade” he mumbled, yawning and trying to keep awake. “Nobody else.”

“Well, look, Shikaku, I know you’re tired. Thank you for the coffee, I really should be getting on home now.” She started to get up from the booth.

What the hell? What had happened here? Why was she leaving so abruptly? And her eyes had done that same funny thing as Tsunade’s earlier today with Jiraiya – all soft to steel in nothing flat.

Tsunade. Shit – had he actually just said ‘Tsunade and nobody else’ to her? And why did she keep looking at his shoulder…

“Son-of-a-bitch!’ he started jerking back in the booth as if he’d been stung.

“I do beg your pardon!” Yoshino snapped in a voice that he was sure must be a variant of some Water Style Ice Jutsu and if it wasn’t it sure as hell ought to be.

“It’s Inoichi’s shirt!” he yelled brushing furiously at the blond hair still at his shoulder. “It’s like living with a damned golden retriever puppy, shedding and hair and shit all over the house!” Fuck this shirt business. From now on he was just going to wear one of those damned fishnet undershirts and his jounin vest – if you spill something on that freakin’ fishnet then no stains. No stains, no fucking laundry.

He threw up his hands in exasperation, then let them come to rest, open and facing up on the table. He dared to look up at her eyes, he seemed safe for now, they were twinkling almost with mirth, almost as if she were going to laugh. “Look, you’re right, it’s late, I’ll walk you home.”

“I can take care of myself,” she said softly.

He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, “I know that. Believe me. I know that. But what I’m saying is…I’d like to walk you home Yoshino Sakamoto.”

“I’d like that, Shikaku Nara,” she answered. Then hand in hand they left the cafe.

Halfway to her house he paused and pulled her to him, bending down to meet her lips as she turned her face up to him. “I missed you,” he whispered to her.

“I missed you, too,” she mumbled back, feeling him wrap his arms around her and holding her close. She melted against him and all the tension and worries of the last few days evaporated into the night air.

Chapter 8: Tsunade Explains It All

Shikaku woke up and looked at the clock. Shit! Late. Best not to keep Tsunade waiting. He scrounged around in a drawer for a clean shirt and realized they were all worn and strewn around the room, some more worse for the wear than others.

Shit. They were seriously going to have to do some laundry soon. Well, Inoichi and Chouza weren’t back yet. He’d pilfer what he could. Wandering into Inoichi’s room, he yanked a (hopefully) clean black t-shirt out of the drawer. No time for breakfast, he sprinted on over to the lab.

Now he was sitting on the same stool he’d tumbled off of last night when Jiraiya and Orochimaru showed up and Tsunade was explaining the significance of the pills the two of them had brought her last night. And Shikaku was leaning with one elbow propped up on the acid-resistant countertop, his chin resting on his hand and his eyes drooping.

“Shikaku! Are you listening to me?” Tsunade’s voice was sharp. He sat up straight, stifling a yawn.

“Yes, umm… so they’re like soldier pills?” he asked hopefully, seeming to recall that she’d said something about that a little bit ago.

She stood with her hands on her hips like she had last night only this time she was facing him, glaring at him. She took a deep breath in exasperation and he really should have appreciated the gesture more but he was just too tired.

“No! They are not like soldier pills! There’s a world of difference…I…did you have any breakfast?” Her voice softened just a little bit then, seeing how he was looking at her with his eyes wide open almost as if he was afraid that if he blinked he’d fall asleep.

Shikaku wave his hand, “S’all right, I’ll get something later.”

“No, you’ll get something now. Come on, you need to eat.” And with a firm grasp on his elbow that brooked no negotiation, she got him up off the stool and steered him out the door.

A little bit later, they were finishing up the last bites of breakfast and tea at a shop in the village. Shikaku had to admit that the caffeine had done wonders. He wondered if there was a coffee-maker in the few remaining boxes of equipment yet to be unpacked. If not, he might need to pick one up and bring it in. Especially if she was going to be having him keep the same schedule they’d been running at so far.

They were just about to leave when Jiraiya showed up. “Kid, you lucky devil, you must have done something right if you’ve got her buying you breakfast,” he joked good-naturedly as he slid into the booth next to Shikaku, effectively trapping him.

Tsunade held her tea cup to her lips with both hands, peering at Jiraiya over the top of it like a hawk. The ragged fingernail was glaring to Shikaku, reminding him that this was serious and that he really should try to keep it together.

“What are you doing here, baka!” she snapped.

“Ah, Hime-sensei, I didn’t want to miss your lesson this morning. I showed up at the lab but you weren’t there. Imagine my surprise to find you two breakfasting together.” Jiraiya spoke softly now, toning down the bombastic comments Shikaku had heard from him so far. The white-haired sannin reached up and gently took Tsunade’s right hand, the one with the torn nail and coaxed it down from the cup. He held her hand in his, stroking the back with his thumb.

Then with a playful, upturned smirk Jiraiya had added, “Guess I should have known after last night, sensei.”

Almost, Shikaku noted, it had almost worked. He’d seen her eyes go so soft when Jiraiya took her hand. Then the big goof had to go and throw that zinger at her, at his expense, too, he might add. And bam! Her eyes had gone from soft to steel in nothing flat. She’d jerked her hand away so fast she’d nearly spilled her tea. But why had he done it on purpose?

“Bastard!” she hissed under her breath. A couple of the patrons in the booth next to them still turned their heads in their direction. “You know there’s nobody but Dan.”

“Oh, really Hime?” He smiled and brushed one hand against Shikaku’s shoulder where a wayward strand of long blond hair lay.

“Wait… No… Shit… Hey, this is Inoichi’s shirt!” Shikaku spluttered. “I was just borrowing it! I haven’t had time to do laundry!”

Jiraiya clapped his shoulder in a friendly fashion. “No need to explain to me, kid.” Tsunade just rolled her eyes and muttered something into her tea cup.

“Okay, Jiraiya, you’ve had your fun, now seriously what brings you here this morning.”

“Seriously, Tsunade, I came to hear your explanation to your…assistant.”

“But you already know…”

“I know,” he replied, leaning back against the booth. “I just want to hear what you tell him.” His gaze with hers was level, steady when he added, “and what you don’t.”

Tsunade sighed. “Fine. Come on, let’s get going.”

The three of them made it back to the lab. Shikaku felt he would never understand what was going on between the two sannin. One minute they were cutting up with each other, calling each other names like last night when they were behaving like him and his two teammates. Then this morning there seemed to be all sorts of unresolved sexual tension between the two of them (completely UNLIKE anything between him, Inoichi and Chouza he added hastily to himself.)

Back in the lab, Tsunade got down to business. Now that he had some caffeine in his system and his blood sugar wasn’t plummetting, Shikaku was able to pay attention to what she was saying.

The pills were like soldier pills only in that they provided a boost of sorts, but not to chakra in general. They were targeted to enhance specifically the chakra and those brain centers most closely involved in genjutsu. The pills appeared to be able to provide basic genjutsu performance levels to those shinobi who previously had exhibited no predispostion for genjutsu at all. For those who were already genjutsu adept they could provide an incredible amount of power.

Tsunade paused in her explanation at that point and looked at Jiraiya almost as if she were expecting him to contradict her. “Jiraiya? Did you have anything to add?”

He shrugged, “I told you, I just came to listen.”

Tsunade looked uncomfortable but continued on. “Yes, well, for experienced genjutus users, the power boost appears to be off the charts, surreal, almost…” she floundered and looked again at Jiraiya.

“Poor man’s Tsukyomi,” Jiraiya added softly.

Shikaku straightened up, watching Tsunade’s reaction. She looked down at the floor, unable to meet Jiraiya’s eyes. When she finally did look up at them again, her eyes were haunted, scared. Of what? Shit. Tsukyomi. He’d heard of that but for the life of him couldn’t remember what the fuck it was. He’d have to ask Inoichi whenever the blonde finally hauled his ass back into Konoha.

Then a chill ran down his back as he remembered Inoichi and his ANBU spook. And just where had Tsunade and Jiraiya gotten their information about what these pills were capable of?

“So that’s the gist of it then – a soldier pill type of boost for genjutsu users?” he ventured to ask.

“Well, there is one other difference…,” Jiraiya offered.

“They’re addictive.” Tsunade said flatly. “Soldier pills aren’t. People might develop a bad habit of using soldier pills, but all in all the downside after the rush wears off and the chakra depletion sets in a day or two later is usually enough to even prevent that from happening. I’ve seen a couple of cases of soldier pill habit, but for the vast majority of shinobi they only use them when they really need them and only for their intended purpose.” She shook her head and poked at one of the little pills. “These things are addictive – physiological dependence. And once you start it appears that you have to keep it up or…you die.”

“Where do they come from?” Shikaku asked.

“That’s what we’re here for – to find out who’s producing them. And possibly come up with a way to interfere with the physiological characteristics while…” her voice trailed off, “still preserving the genjutsu-psycho-pharmacological attributes.” Her voice had trailed off and her gaze had trailed away to the side of the room opposite Jiraiya.

The white-haired man sat very still, studying his teammate quietly for a few minutes. He cleared his throat and asked, “Are you, um, are you done, Hime?”

“Yes,” she answered very softly.

“Okay, well, then, I guess that wraps up the lesson for today, sensei,” Jiraiya said, rising to his feet, the good-natured tone in his voice sounding false and hollow to Shikaku’s ears this time. “See you ’round kid.”

Jiraiya had made his way to the door when Tsunade’s soft voice stopped him, “Jiraiya, I’ll…I’ll see you later, okay?”

Shikaku sat very still observing the two, Tsunade never looked up from the floor and Jiraiya never turned from the door, his back to her, his hand on the doorknob.

“Yeah, sure, Hime, you know where you can find me,” he said without once turning around.

Shikaku had no idea why, but it seemed like he had just witnessed the saddest thing he’d ever seen in his entire life.

Chapter 7: Missing You

One bad thing about her current assignment, Yoshino discovered, was the downtime. Oh, if you had to be off duty, then the islands were certainly a great place to be, unfortunately, you didn’t get paid for it.

That wasn’t precisely correct, she’d discovered. They did get a per diem allowance since they were out of town due to the mission. But the mission itself involved escort duty. Once the tradespeople were actually at their destination, the shinobi weren’t actually escorting – so no duty – no duty pay. As soon as the clients were satisfied they had a good working environment they would probably arrange a routine transfer service between the two villages so that the shinobi escorting the in-bound crews could turn right back around and take the departing crews back to Konoha, maybe on a two week cycle. The goal would be a couple of teams of tradespeople, a couple of teams of shinobi escorts bi-weekly.

But for now, she, Asako and Tsuyoshi were stuck here for three more days while the crew settled in and verified that their working conditions were acceptable.

Boring.

Asako had negotiated a little bit extra for them by offering their services as sentries for the tools and supplies they’d brought with them from Konoha. The crew chief agreed it was a good idea, not because crime was particularly bad there, but just because there was so much activity going on it would be hard for them to keep an eye on their own things. Since the village was already full to bursting with tourists and construction people, they’d established a small camp at the edge of town and one shinobi was always on duty there so that the villagers would feel comfortable leaving the belongings they had brought with them.

This afternoon, guard duty had fallen to Tsuyoshi. That left Yoshino with the whole day free. She was wondering how to use it and considering she didn’t have much money to spend she was leaning towards just relaxing on the beach for the day. Yoshino rummaged around in her rucksack and found her swimsuit. Preparing to change in the tent she shared with Asako she was interrupted by her roommate’s return.

“Oi, Yoshino, how do you want to spend your birthday?”

Yoshino brightened, “How did you know?” She’d been deliberately trying to not think about it. It’s not like she was a little kid anymore, needing a cake or anything like that. Still it was nice that someone remembered.

Asako just shrugged and winked at her. “I’m a good team leader – try to stay up on all my team member’s stats. So, what do you want to do? Beach? Shopping? Or since the pay for this sucks and everything in this town is at tourist trap prices, maybe just window shopping.”

Grinning, Yoshino agreed that window shopping would be the best. She put her swimsuit back and the two women headed into town after letting Tsuyoshi know where they would be.

They’d wandered aimlessly through the shops that lined the streets, starting with those nearest the ocean and working their way back into the heart of the town. Yoshino noticed that all the children’s shops were catching Asako’s eye. She remembered that Asako had a daughter but was ashamed that she couldn’t recall how old she would be by now. In light of Asako even remembering her birthday, this made Yoshino feel pretty low for not having more information herself about the people she was traveling with.

“So, um, Asako, how old is your daughter now?” Yoshino asked.

“Anko? She’s four now, hard to believe she’ll be starting school this fall.” It was Asako’s turn to brighten and babble happily about Anko’s antics. She may have sounded happy, but Yoshino could tell she must miss her, being away like this. She questioned her about it.

Asako shrugged. “You do what you have to do. “

Yoshino hesitated, full of questions, but unsure quite how to go about asking them. “Yes, but…”

“Not because I have to have to in order support us. I mean, in a way, I guess that is true because it’s my job but I could probably get another job. But, it’s hard to explain. It’s different for everybody I guess. I have to because I’m a shinobi, because just about everyone in my family as far back as I can remember were shinobi. Not all of them, mind you, but the majority. And, it’s who I am, it’s what I have to do to be me.”

“Don’t you miss her?” Yoshino asked, remembering her mom home every day when she came home from school.

For just an instant she saw a flicker of anger in Asako’s eyes but it quickly passed. “Of course I miss her. I miss her every day I’m away from her. I would venture to guess that your mom misses you, too, when you’re gone. Like today, on your birthday?” As soon as she said it she saw the flicker of pain in Yoshino’s eyes and Asako regretted how catty it had come out.

“Look, Yoshino, I’m sorry about that. But yes, I do miss Anko, but would she be better off if I were at home but not me? Do you see what I’m saying?”

Yoshino nodded. “I’m sorry too, that didn’t come out right. I guess what I should have said is how do you manage?”

Asako laughed. “Be sure to marry a man with a large family and young parents. You’ll have plenty of aunts and uncles to share the load, your kid will be a lot happier with a passel of cousins to spar around with and your highest priority mission in life once the baby gets here will be transporting it to and from the grandparent’s house.”

Camaraderie restored, they went into a children’s boutique and picked out a pink frog coin purse for Anko.

The next store caught Yoshino’s attention. It was a ladies clothing store with stunning displays in the window. Asako caught the look in Yoshino’s eye.

“Come on, we’re goin’ in,” she grinned, grabbing Yoshino by the elbow.

Yoshino resisted. “No, honestly Asako, I couldn’t afford anything in there, I’m sure.”

“Window shopping, remember? We don’t have to buy anything but we can sure as hell have fun trying on, right?”

Yoshino relented. Inside was a bewildering display. Yoshino wandered among exquisite kimonos, elaborate haori, obi, hakima all in the richest silks and most elaborate patterns she’d ever seen.

Asako was teasing her, holding up one gaudy outfit after another. Yoshino just shook her head at each one, trying hard not to giggle at Asako’s outrageous suggestions.

But then, Asako held up one that took Yoshino’s breath away. Completely un-gaudy, it was actually rather plain until you looked closely at it. Rich, deep blue, it was a sleeveless tunic with a high collar, silvery-white piping around the edges, hem and sleeve. A dragon was embroidered on it, a single silver thread tracing the outline of the creature among clouds. It was very understated, but Yoshino thought it was very elegant. Holding it in her hand she felt the silk spill like water through her fingers.

“I think this is the one,” Asako laughed, seeing how Yoshino was mesmerized by it. “Why don’t you go try it on?”

The saleslady was happy to assist them finding an appropriate black hakima to go with it, same rich liquid feeling silk. Of course, once she had it on, Yoshino knew she just had to have it, even it meant returning from the entire mission with a netzero gain to her bank balance. Looking at herself in the mirror she couldn’t help wondering if Shikaku would like how she looked in it. She lifted the hem of the tunic, feeling the cool silk between her fingers and wondering, too, if he’d like how she felt in it. Giddy, she would never admit to anyone but herself that the embroidered clouds reminded her of the night they’d kissed before she left.

After she’d paid for her purchase, they realized they’d been gone for several hours and it was time to return so that one of them could relieve Tsuyoshi.

When they returned, they found Tsuyoshi leaning up against a tree with that sullen, disinterested look that seemed to be characteristic of Uchiha. He was good looking enough, but the problem was, everything about his demeanor said that he knew it and you should too.

He spoke more words than she’d heard him utter the entire trip. “Hey, Yoshino, I hear it’s your birthday. If Asako will take watch tonight, I’ll take you to dinner.”

Yoshino stood there, not quite knowing what to say. He wasn’t asking her to dinner. As a matter of fact, the way he’d phrased it all he’d ask was for Asako to stand guard, and that not very politely. The presumption being that she’d go, that she’d want to go.

“Oh, go on,” Asako poked her shoulder. “I don’t mind standing watch tonight. You two go on.”

“Yes, um, okay, um, thank you, Tsuyoshi,” Yoshino stammered, not really looking forward to this at all but not seeing a way out of it.

“Wear something nice, ” he said in an offhand, dismissive kind of way, “I know a great restaurant.”

Yoshino was still holding her parcel as she slipped into the tent. It was a ridiculous thought, she knew, but the outfit was special to her. She didn’t have anything else on the trip to wear though. But still, she’d kind of bought it with Shikaku in mind, wanting him to see her in it. The fact of the matter was, though, that they’d only had one date. What if they never even went out again? One date. That’s all it was. She sighed. Today was her birthday after all. She might was well wear it today.

Dinner turned out to be every bit as bad as Yoshino feared. Not that the restaurant wasn’t great, it was. But other than ordering, Tsuyoshi had hardly spoken more than ten words. The walk back was even worse, he kept brushing up against her shoulder, crowding her. She kept inching away, but he inched with her. Yoshino rolled her eyes in the darkness. They were back at the camp he didn’t honestly think she was…

Then two ham-fisted hands were on her upper arms, pulling her close to him, mouth covering hers, tongue rammed down her throat and…

Yoshino stamped hard on his instep and jumped away as he yowled. “Bitch! What was that for?”

“What was that for you jerk!?” she hissed back.

Asako came around the corner. Yoshino looked at her in concern, even in the moonlight she looked, ashen, shaken.

“Keep it down, you two. The clients are asleep.” Her voice quavered. “Look, Yoshino, you’re going to have to relieve me, now. I must be coming down with something. And what ever just now happened – it’s over. You two got that?”

Tsuyoshi offered a muttered ‘hai’ and sulked off to his tent.

Yoshino ducked into their tent and quickly changed. Asako seemed to be trembling even more just in the few minutes it had taken her to change. “Asako, are you okay? Do you want me to get a doctor?” Yoshino asked with concern in her voice.

Asako brushed her away. “Nah, just coming down with something that’s all. Get me a couple of aspirins out of the med-kit would you?” Yoshino quickly hurried to comply. As she handed them to her, Asako said, “You go ahead and take point until sunrise, I’ll see you in the morning. And be sure and put on some insect repellent. The mosquitos are murder tonight.”

Yoshino obeyed her team captain’s orders and took her post. As she sat beneath the moonlit sky, watching the constellations wheel overhead she thought of that evening with Shikaku that seemed like forever ago, even though it was only three days. She sighed, wondering if Shikaku was thinking about her at all. Did he miss her the way she was missing him right now? Morosely she realized that the answer to that question was ‘probably not.’ After all, he was working with Tsunade.

Chapter 6: So Far Away From Me

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and stand to make no profit from posting this story.

Shikaku yawned and stretched. It was getting to be late in the evening, he wondered when Tsunade would be ready to call it a night.

Looking around the lab he did take a measure of pride in the work they had done getting the lab ready and the equipment set up over the last three days. Well, after he’d cleaned up the broken glass. He was proud of his work since then.

Most of it had been pretty standard stuff, not much different than you’d see in one of the chemistry labs back at the Academy, tubes, flasks, gas spectrometers.

The building also had a reverse pressurized room with two separate levels of keyed entry required for access. Now that had been interesting. He’d never worked in one of those before and the little “push” of the air as you entered the room, plus the slight popping in your ear made you pay attention to the fact that there was some scary shit that was going to be going on here. There wouldn’t be a room like this if there wasn’t a reason for it. And the reason was to keep things ‘in’ that had better not get ‘out’.

The work had been slow going because it had only been the two of them working on it. He thought about asking Tsunade about that but then decided against it. There was only one obvious answer – the fewer people in here, the better.

The days had been long but the work interesting. And the pay was ridiculously good, too – A-rank and he really couldn’t see a reason for it. The building was complete, but empty, they were essentially a two-shinobi moving-installing-cabling-testing-debugging-stocking-system-checking crew. Of course the answer to the pay scale question was obvious, too – keep your mouth shut Shikaku.

That was easy enough – he didn’t know jack shit anyway, only that Tsunade looked like a kid in a candy shop. Except every once in a while when she thought he wasn’t looking he’d catch her with her thumbnail at her lips. He realized then that for the first time in his life she had nine perfectly lacquered nails and one ragged thumbnail.

Extremely scary shit was going to be going on here. Fuck. And the fewer people who knew about it the better.

So, since he’d been such an idiot showing off in front of Tsunade back when he was 14 and first working with her, she knew that he was capable of pretty much anything she might need setup wise. So she’d picked him as her one-person go-to guy. Wasn’t that just like a woman? Hauling out something from four or five years ago and using it to her advantage?

He slumped onto a stool wishing she would just call it quits for tonight. Shit it must be after 1a.m. They’d been here since 7 in the morning until after midnight for the third day straight. He closed his eyes and leaned his head to one side, stretching the muscles in his neck.

He might be peeved that his past had come back to haunt him but he was actually very glad of the work, not just for the pay but because it kept him busy during the day and too tired during the night to dwell on Yoshino too much.

He missed her.

He actually missed her.

How was it possible to still be missing a girl after three days when you’d only ever spent 8 hours with her in your entire life? Four hours the night they were grading the exams and four hours on that incredibly awkward first date that Chouza and Inoichi, plus the fucking ANBU had screwed up. Shit, he hadn’t even gotten to say anything to her before she left.

He yawned again and let his head slump forward toward his chest just a little bit. Maybe he’d just close his eyes for a few minutes while Tsunade decided either what she wanted to do next or else it was time to go home.

He was peacefully relaxed, thinking about kissing Yoshino when he felt two soft warm hands on his shoulders and he jerked his eyes open.

“Shikaku, I’m sorry, I’ve kept you here too much. You’re exhausted.” And those two soft warm hands began to knead his knotted muscles at his neck and shoulders, healing chakra slowing seeping in from her hands to relax them.

Somewhere, there was an inner-15-year-old Shikaku exclaiming “Tchaa! Tsunade’s touching me and I didn’t even have to bump into her!”

Meanwhile, 19-year-old Shikaku was struggling half-heartedly to maintain control, uttering internal exclamations to himself like ‘Down, boy!’ But it was only a half-hearted attempt, really. And when she moved her hands further down his back, running thumbs down and pressing gently along his shoulder blades he closed his eyes and thought that maybe he could just dissolve into a puddle right here and now.

He closed his eyes again wondering if he dared to lean his head back. Because if he did he could have his head pillowed on Tsunade’s tits. Talk about your wildest fantasies!

He was just planning his motions out – lean his head a little to the right as if stretching the muscles there, then back just a little bit like he was rolling to the other side and pausing somewhere in the middle of that circuit and bingo! His head would be on Tsunade’s…

“Careful, kid, she’s a maneater,” came a booming baritone voice followed by a deep chuckle.

Shikaku’s eyes jerked open at this most unwelcome intrusion and he nearly jerked up out of the chair but Tsunade, with both her hands still on his shoulders pushed him back down.

“Shikaku, sit still!” she ordered. She leaned over him almost possessively and he felt her breasts against his back. Nirvana achieved and he couldn’t even savor his moment of bliss. Damn. Life sucked.

“Actually, I hear she prefers boys,” a second voice spoke in a soft tenor accompanied by it’s own faint laugh.

“Well, then, that makes two of us, doesn’t it Orochimaru?” she snapped back, standing up and pushing away from Shikaku with a flick of her wrist that tumbled him out of his chair.

“Sheesh, Tsunade, don’t treat the kid like that,” Jiraiya said, stepping over and extending a hand to help Shikaku to his feet.

“So, you admit you prefer boys?” Orochimaru smirked, “Guess you were right Jiraiya, Dan is her boy-toy. How much do I owe you?”

“I dunno, Oro,” Jiraiya laughed, looking at Shikaku, “This one’s got a beard. Straddling the fence between men and boys, hmmm, Hime?”

“Straddling something,” Orochimaru agreed. Shikaku felt the tips of his ears go pink.

“Shut the fuck up, creeps!” Tsunade huffed.

“Tsk. Tsk. Tsunade, not in front of the children,” Jiraiya chastised, winking at Orochimaru.

Shikaku rubbed his eyes. Here he was about to achieve heaven on earth – his head on Tsunade’s tits. And who knew what other wonders might follow. And it had to be interrupted by her teammates? The legendary sannin? Who were now standing in front of him bickering and calling each other names the way he did with Chouza and Inoichi.

Shit, piss and double damn fuck. He was too tired for this shit.

“So what are you two assholes doing in my lab at 1:30 in the morning?” Tsunade asked.

“We bring you offerings, oh Princess of Bitch-a-lot,” Jiraiya said, enjoying watching Tsunade fume.

“That’s right, Lady On-the-Rag,” Orochimaru chimed in, sidling closer to Jiraiya just in case they pushed Tsunade too far and she decided to take it out of both their hides. “We have what you seek.” And he held out a small plastic bag containing two bright green pills.

Instantly she was all business. “These are the ones from Wave?” she asked Orochimaru who nodded.

Jiraiya held out a similar bag and answered before she asked, “And these are the ones from Rain.”

Tsunade held them in each hand. “Shikaku, why don’t you go on? I’ll get these labeled with Orochimaru and Jiraiya and we can start again in the morning.” Her voice took on a somber tone, “I’ll fill you in on what this is all about, then, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” Shikaku answered, yawning. “See you in the morning.”

He sauntered back home, entering the apartment quietly so as not to disturb his roommates if they were home. Shit. He didn’t even know if they were home. He thought about checking their rooms but decided that would be a little too parental. He hadn’t seen either of the two of them for three days. He hadn’t seen Yoshino either. He thought about getting a beer out of the refrigerator, but decided against it since he’d have to be up in four fucking hours anyway.

Shikaku went to his room and stretched out on his bed, still in his clothes, the last thought he had was he wondered what Yoshino was up to in Wave. That was where Orochimaru’s “sample” had come from. What was going on there? And Rain, wasn’t that where Jiraiya’s sample had come from? The same place the ANBU had been so interested in when Chouza and Inoichi had returned from there. What was up? What missions were Chouza and Inoichi on? He’d have to check the board tomorrow.

And what was Yoshino doing?

Was anything major going on in Wave?

His dreams that night were a tangled mess of black and gold hair.

Chapter 5: What a Day for a Daydream

Disclaimer: I do not own these Naruto characters and stand to make no profit from posting this story.

Yoshino had been assigned a C-ranked mission along with a couple of other chuunin she recognized, to provide guard coverage for a party of craftsmen, carpenters and stonemasons traveling to the Land Of Waves. The island country was experiencing a small construction boom and given its tiny size it did not have a large pool of skilled workers to draw from. So they had contracted out a lot of their job requirements and Yoshino was escorting a contingent from Konoha.

Yoshino found her partners to be pleasant but not very outgoing. Tsuyoshi was a young man of the Uchiha clan. He had the clan’s characteristic dark hair and eyes. As far as personality went, though, Yoshino thought you could hold better conversations with the wall. He exchanged initial introductions with them all and then spoke hardly another word the entire trip. The third chuunin on the mission was a woman a few years older than her, Asako Miterashi. Yoshino liked Asako, she had been on several missions with her before. She was always pleasant and relaxed. Of course her calm nature took nothing away from her skills as a kunoichi. She was quite accomplished and Yoshino often wondered why she hadn’t made jounin yet.

Since Asako was clearly the most senior of their trio there was no question as to who was taking point on the operation – Asako introduced them to their charges, explained some basic commands to the travelers so that they could respond to her quickly in the unlikely event she’d have to order them all to take cover. But that possibility did seem extremely remote, unless some bandits were after the tools of various trades the craftspeople had all been wise enough to leave any valuables at home and just pack the tools they’d need with them.

So, formalities completed, they were underway. Normally Yoshino would have initiated a conversation with Asako just to pass the time. But today she took the opportunity to reflect back over what had happened last night.

Shikaku had kissed her.

Well, that was to be expected, it had been a date after all.

She frowned to herself. Of course, he had seemed to be going out of his way to make sure his friends knew it was not a date.

But then, the second time that night, after dinner, when they’d run into Chouza and Inoichi again, he hadn’t seemed to mind at all. As a matter of fact, he’d seemed a little possessive – especially around Inoichi. Which was kind of cool. Of course only “kind of cool” because fundamentally that was objectifying, wasn’t it? ‘To be the object” of his affection? And wasn’t that a Very Bad Thing? Every issue of Cosmopolitan Kunoichi she’d ever read said so. She supposed it had a lot to do with whether one wanted to be objectified in that way. If the objectify-ee wanted to be the object of affection for the objectify-or then that was okay, wasn’t it? If you didn’t object? Of course it was hard to be objective about this when you were the object at the center.

Yoshino grinned to herself at the silliness of her train of thought. She only thought the grin was to herself, however, Asako caught her and smiled.

“Oi, Yoshino – is your head in the game? Or in the clouds, ne?”

Yoshino shook her head and smiled sheepishly. Of course Asako was right, even though it was only a C-ranked mission these people deserved her full attention if she was going to protect them. “Sorry, Asako-san,” she replied. “I’ll stay more focused.”

Asako just smiled and shook her head. She’d been sixteen once, she knew the symptoms. Clearly there was a boy involved.

“So, who is he?” she asked, sidling up to Yoshino who she’d put in the lead. They were still well close enough to Konoha’s borders, the odds of them encountering any danger here was astronomically small. So she took the opportunity to see what she could get Yoshino to spill.

This time Yoshino didn’t just smile, she smiled and blushed. How embarrassing. There wasn’t anything to tell. Not really. Dinner and a movie and a couple of kisses, nothing more. If Asako was looking for juicy gossip she was going to be sorely disappointed. And there was a small part of Yoshino inside that was disappointed, too. She hadn’t wanted the night to end at all. “His name is Shikaku Nara but I’m sorry Asako, no gossip, just dinner and a movie.”

Asako grumbled good-naturedly about there must have been something to take her mind off the mission like that.

Thinking back about kissing him goodnight Yoshino remembered just how much she’d never wanted it to end. She’d turned toward the door and walked away but their fingertips remained touching as long as possible She almost felt each individual finger slide off his as she stepped away. And he’d not wanted it to end either, had he? It took two to hold hands that way, to hold on that way.

Yoshino shook her head to clear the mist. Best not to think any more about it, she chided herself inwardly. She’d probably never even see him again. One date. That was all it was. It was fun. It was nice. It was over.

Yoshino sighed again. It had been really nice. And even if she didn’t see him again (and she really wished she would) she’d still have plenty of time on this mission to daydream.

She touched her cheek where his evening’s stubble had scratched across her face and she could still hear his voice rumble in her ear, thrilling, that he’d see her tomorrow.

Well, today was tomorrow now and it was looking extremely unlikely that they’d be able to see each other at all, seeing how she was expected to be traveling or in Wave for the next 5-7 days.

And Shikaku was working with Tsunade.

Meanwhile, back at Tsunade’s new lab, Shikaku was surveying the new equipment. He whistled. This must have cost a fortune. He asked her about it.

“The Council funded it. You’ll see why once we get started and I give you a briefing of what all’s going on. But for now, suffice it to say, it’s your tax dollars at work.” She stood with her hands on her hips proudly surveying her new domain.

Shikaku appreciated the pose. Hell, what red-blooded shinobi wouldn’t?

But alas, they had work to do. He helped her unpack several boxes containing even more equipment and searched around on countertops for places to set it down. One of the boxes contained something so funny he almost laughed out loud.

It was a tray of test tubes, beakers, graduated cylinders and ehrlenmeyer flasks in assorted sizes.

He remembered how he’d grumbled the first time, years ago, when Tsunade had him clean the test equipment and put it back. This had been over 5 years ago. He’d grumbled until he’d realized that task actually had its upsides. First, to put them away after he’d washed them required him carrying them across the lab. Each transit of the lab gave him an opportunity to ‘accidentally’ bump into Tsunade. Shikaku wondered how much glassware had been sacrificed to teenage lust.

The second and probably more important thing was that it made Tsunade happy. The entire lab ran much more smoothly if Tsunade was happy. He’d seen what happened to a lab when she was unhappy and decided he did not want to be around for a repeat performance. Whatever had angered her had happened on an A-ranked mission she was on that had gone wrong back when he was a chuunin. He never got the full details about it but he knew that it involved kids. He also knew that he probably did not want the details of the story. So from that day forward Shikaku had endeavored to keep the lab organized.

Inoichi and Chouza wouldn’t be able to believe this was the same lazy Shikaku who left crap laying all around their apartment. But they just wouldn’t understand. Even though it took work to keep the lab organized, it was actually less work than if you had to spend the energy looking for shit all the time.

And besides, it made Tsunade happy.

Tsunade was studying Shikaku, smiling and remembering what an absolute klutz he was when they both worked together at the beginning. Shit, her glassware bill had been through the roof and she’d had to beg the council for more budget. It was good to see he had outgrown some of the awkwardness.

In the past, Shikaku would have noticed a gaze like that if she were to fix it upon him. But not today – he was too caught up in his own daydream. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t actually a daydream, maybe it could more accurately be described as memories of last night.

He was remembering everything about her, about Yoshino. How she looked, how she felt, how she tasted.

How she fit. The top of her head just came up to his chin. Her hand had fit so perfectly in his. when he wrapped his arms around her and she had leaned forward to him, pressing her body against his she had just fit so well, like she belonged.

Tsunade was getting impatient. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, tapping one foot on the floor. Let him daydream on his own time she thought.

“Oi, Shikaku, are you going to put those away this century so that we can get started?”

Her sharp voice startled him out of his reverie.

He let go of the box of glassware he was holding and heard it go crashing to the ground.

Chapter 4: In Which A Plot Appears

Disclaimer; I do not own Naruto and do not make any profit from posting this story.

Inoichi and Chouza rolled in about two a.m., Shikaku who had not been sleeping anyway, heard them come in and left his room to see what had happened with the ANBU. Chouza was taking a plate of leftover chicken out of the refrigerator and Shikaku saw that Inoichi was drinking milk out of the carton. Again. Shikaku just rolled his eyes and called him a slob, never noticing it was his own pile of assorted clean and dirty laundry he was stepping over as he walked into their small living room.

“So, how’d it go?” he asked cautiously. Something wasn’t making sense here. The three of them had certainly screwed up on missions before, but he had no doubt that if it had been anything worthwhile his two friends would have told him about what fun he’d missed. He couldn’t conceive of them getting into any truly ANBU-worthy level trouble. Certainly not if he’d heard nothing about it straight from his two best friends.

Inoichi answered first, shaking his head, “It was the damnedest thing, I don’t think they were actually after us for any particular reason, just had something to do with us being in Rain.”

Chouza chimed in, “Yeah, what streets we were on. Who did we see before and after meeting our contact. Did our contact see us with anybody. Just tedious, relentless boring questions over and over again. I can’t tell you how many times they covered the same ground in…” he looked over at the clock, “shit, in four hours.”

Shikaku sat leaning forward in his chair, elbows on his knees, thinking about what his friends were saying. “So, nothing else?”

“Well,” Inoichi grinned sheepishly.

“Inoichi…” Shikaku hissed out having a bad feeling that he knew this was not going to be good.

“They took the weed he had on him, got the name of our seller, told us both we’d been bad boys and said we’d have our pay docked fifty percent for the mission,” Chouza finished, joining in the conversation since there was no chicken left.

Now it was Shikaku’s turn to scowl. Inoichi was right, this was odd.

“You told him who we buy from in Rain?” Shikaku snapped at Inoichi.

“No way, man, they already knew. They just showed us his picture, they had a mind jutsu member on their team. Just put the picture in front of us and that’s all he needed – he knew we knew. “

“So then what happened?”

Chouza had gotten up and retrieved a bag of chips from the cabinet. Either he was actually getting full or the meeting had rattled him so much he was losing his appetite – he actually waved the bag toward the two others, offering them some chips first.

The red-head munched on a few chips then mumbled, “They took his grass.”

“Yes, but, shit, since when does ANBU care anything about a little grass?” Shikaku asked. “Hell, half the time you can smell it on them anyway.”

“I don’t know,” Chouza mumbled thoughtfully through his chips. “It almost seemed like having the meeting with us was more important than whatever it was supposed to be about. Like they just had to file a report or something. Dunno. Maybe they’re on a quota system now and have to get their reports in by the end of the month.”

Shikaku was trying to process all that his friends had just told him. They were right – this was damned odd. ANBU were, well ANBU, what the hell were they doing caring about something as penny-ante as this.

“Are you sure you guys didn’t do something boneheaded in Rain? Piss off anybody while you were there?”

Chouza shook his head. Inoichi piped up, “Swear to god, Shikaku, it was boring as ever there.”

“Inoichi, did you try to get a sense of what they…”

“Oh, no,” Inoichi held up his hand, interrupting Shikaku. “No. Those guys are freaking spooks. No fucking way was I going to go snooping around in any of their heads, no matter how lightly I tiptoed. No. Fucking. Way. I value my own ass too much. And I do mean that literally.”

Shikaku thought about this some more. Whatever the picture-wielding guy had done had certainly spooked Inoichi. He sighed, maybe his friend was just embarrassed about being tripped up so easily into giving up their seller. Whatever. He yawned and stretched, standing up. “C’mon guys, what’s done is done. Probably nothing more to it. Betcha Chouza’s right. They’ve probably got some quota of forms to fill out this month.”

Although, Shikaku didn’t believe one damn word of what he’d just said. The three friends said good night and went to their respective rooms. Shikaku lay awake for the longest time alternating between thinking of the deep warm pools of Yoshino’s eyes and the brief flicker of fear he’d just seen in Inoichi’s clear blue ones.

The next morning came far too soon for the three. There was the general scurrying around, bumping into each other and cursing the fact that someone had finished off the last of the milk. Add to that the fact that the laundry had once again refused to put itself away so that they were scrounging through assorted piles sniffing to find the least recently worn articles of clothing. All in all it made for not a very good start on the day.

By the time they got to the mission room, it was packed. Normally they wouldn’t have cared one way or the other. But Chouza and Inoichi were grateful that they were in the back of the room and could nod off, leaning against the wall until their names were called. Shikaku usually preferred the back of the room, too. But today he was dismayed to to find Yoshino all the way across from him in the crowded room. Assignments were already starting so he couldn’t work his way over to her, at least until it thinned out some.

Damn! It just occurred to him that the lower ranked missions were usually handed out first, quicker way to thin out the room, plus leave only the more senior jounin in the room as more sensitive missions were discussed. There was a very good chance she’d be called out for the day before he could work his way over to her. He saw her look over her shoulder at him and smile when she saw him. He caught himself before he actually waved at her. God, Inoichi and Chouza would never let him live that down. He simply nodded back at her.

Names were called out, people began to file to the exit, mostly genin, the majority of the brats cleared out in very short order. It looked like there was enough space for him to begin to weave his way through the remainder of the shinobi over to where Yoshino stood. “Look, I’ll catch you guys later,” he mumbled to Inoichi and Chouza. He rolled his eyes as he thought he heard Inoichi whisper ‘whipped’ behind him.

He hadn’t gone more than two steps in her direction when Tsunade entered the room. “Excuse me, Morino-san,” she called out to the administrator at the front of the room. “Have you given Shikaku Nara an assignment yet?”

As the older gentleman checked his list, Tsunade scanned the room. When her gaze landed on Shikaku, she brightened. “There you are Shikaku! I’m glad you haven’t left yet. I need to ask you to come with me for the next few days. I’ve got a project that I’m going to need your help on.”

Shikaku stopped dead in his tracks. On the surface, Konohagakure functioned as a fairly egalitarian society. However, if they did have anything close to royalty Tsunade was it. Granddaughter of the founder of the village, one of the three prized students of the current Hokage, world-renowned for her prowess in fighting and drop-dead gorgeous to boot. Yes, Tsunade was the closest thing Konoha was likely to see to a princess for some time. And although she didn’t flout or abuse her position per se, she was still accustomed to getting her way.

“Oh, well,” he started then paused, looking over at Yoshino, “sure.” Really, it only made sense. Tsunade was a medical expert. He was an expert in his clan’s encyclopedic knowledge of herbs, extracts and chemical compounds. He’d worked with her before on a lot of projects in the past. Of course Inoichi and Chouza knew all this. Unfortunately they also knew that she had been his first crush.

The dynamic duo were giggling behind him. Tsunade knew them as well, since she’d worked with Shikaku off and on the last couple of years. She leaned around Shikaku and waved at the two of them, “Hi guys,” she said. Whether she intended it or not, her shift in position gave an even better view of her cleavage, to both Shikaku and his friends. Fortunately this shut Inoichi’s whispered ‘woot’. And fortunately too, it made a great view even greater.

Unfortunately, Shikaku caught sight of the expression on Yoshino’s face from across the room. It was hard to categorize it, not mad, not sad, just somewhat…resigned. Which made it kind of sad in its own way.

Shit! First she had to run into Chouza and Inoichi in full-bore, head-on jerk-mode yesterday at the barbeque restaurant. Now Tsunade was hauling his ass out of here and he hadn’t even gotten a chance to say good morning to Yoshino.

Sheesh. What did a guy have to do to spend time with a girl around here?

Chapter 3: Something About Yoshino

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I do not make any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Shikaku and Yoshino strolled casually down the street toward the cineplex. The night was warm and pleasant, grey-blue clouds back-lit by a full moon drifted across an indigo sky. The moon washed out all but the brightest stars, that and the glaring lights from the marquee as they approached the cinema.

Shikaku cringed – he saw two people approaching them from the other direction and they appeared headed toward the theater as well. Shit! Could this get any worse he wondered to himself. What they hell were they doing here?

Chouza recognized Shikaku and raised one hand to wave to his friend simultaneously jabbing Inoichi viciously in the ribs with his other elbow.

“The fuck…!?!” Inoichi barked but Chouza jerked his head in the direction of Shikaku and Yoshino.

“Behave!” he hissed in a threatening tone.

Inoichi glanced at the girl with Shikaku. Not bad. Easy enough on the eyes although a little skinny for his tastes. Still, the closer to the bone the sweeter to the m…

Chouza glared at him. “Listen Inoichi,” he continued in a lethal whisper, tugging the taller boy’s jounin vest and bringing him to a full stop in mid-stride. “I do not have to be able to work your mind-fuck jutsu to know what you’re thinking. Do not EVEN try to steal this one from Shikaku! Don’t even think about it.”

Inoichi was smirking back at his friend and giving him his best ‘who, me?’ big blue eyes look. “Chouza, what are you saying? I would never…”

Shikaku and Yoshino had entered the ticket line, Shikaku keeping one wary eye on the squabble going on between his two friends.

“The hell you wouldn’t! You’ve done it to him and me both. And what’s worse about it is that none of them have meant a thing to you. You’re just so damn competitive. You just want to get them in the sack, chalk up another notch on your kunai and then you’re done with them. How many girls have you even slept with?”

Inoichi just grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “Who’s keeping count?”

“Shit! Inoichi! That’s just what I’m talking about. You are! You don’t know their names, but I’ll bet you DO know how many. Just as long as you’re in the lead that’s all that matters to you.”

The blond haired young man softened his stance. Clearly, this last girl had meant something to Chouza, he’d obviously really stepped on a nerve there. “Look, Chouza, I’m sorry about…about…,” Inoichi racked his brain trying to think of the girls name Ayami? Ayama? Aya? That was it! Aya! “I’m really sorry about Aya, guy. I won’t let it happen again. Not to you. Not to Nara.”

Chouza just shook his head. “You are so full of it, you know that Yamanaka? I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“Look, man, I said I’m sorry.”

“Just forget it okay. Just forget it and leave Nara’s girl alone. Alright?”

“Sure. I will. I promise.”

Chouza sighed heavily. “Inoichi, my friend, do you know what I wish for you?”

“Whazzat?”

“I hope that you marry the most beautiful girl in Konoha.”

“Yeah?” Inoichi grinned. “Thanks.”

“Yes. And I hope that the two of you have the most abso-fucking-lutely beautiful daughter this town has ever seen. And that you lie awake at nights for the rest of your life wondering who’s in her pants.” Chouza smiled beatifically.

“That’s cold, bro. That’s really cold.”

“Thanks.” Chouza replied. “Come on, let’s go get tickets.”

Shikaku and Yoshino were at the refreshment counter by the time the two young men caught up with them. Shikaku sighed. It was inevitable. There was no way he was getting out of introducing them tonight.

As they took their purchases, he and Yoshino paused at the end of the line where Chouza and Inoichi were waiting. “Yoshino, these are my teammates, Chouza Akamichi and Inoichi Yamanaka. Guys, this is Yoshino Sakamoto.”

Shikaku kept an eye on Inoichi as the three said a round of ‘hellos.’

“So, what are you two here to see tonight, ‘Princess Misaka?’ ” Inoichi asked.

Yoshino had to force herself not to roll her eyes. These guys were after all her date’s teammates. Best to be polite to them.

“No, actually we’re here for Jiraiya Goketsu,” she replied.

Inoichi gave a half laugh, “How’d he talk you into that one?”

Shikaku started to reply but Yoshino spoke up crisply, “I suggested it.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and saw her brows furrowed.

“Well, that was a nice thing for you to do,” Inoichi said in a patronizing tone.

“Why do you say that?” she asked.

“Well, most girls I know wouldn’t be interested in that type of movie…”

“Ahh, I see,” she said smiling at him. “Well, maybe I’m not most girls.”

Shikaku smiled to himself, realizing he couldn’t tell if her smile was sweet or dangerous. He wondered what Inoichi would say next.

“Well, it’s understandable, I guess, most girls are pretty taken with the leading man in this one.”

Yoshino shook her head. “Maybe so, but I’m more interested in the plot line. It’s supposed to be the production that’s the most faithful to the original source material. Better even than the Kurasawa versions from the fifties.”

“Kuroski.”

“I beg your pardon?” Yoshino looked confused.

“Kuroski. Kuroski directed the fifties’ version.”

Yoshino scowled. “No, he directed the ones in 67, 68 and 71. Kurasawa did the fifties.”

“Kuroski.”

“Kurasawa.”

“Kuroski.”

“Kurasawa.”

“Listen, blondie,” she said with her hands on her hips. “You may think you know something about the history of the genre, but trust me, you’re wrong.” Part of her was horrified that she’d just called one of her date’s teammates, a jounin no less, “blondie.” But another, more vocal part of her was damned if she was going to let this newbie misstate facts about her favorite fandom.

They bickered a bit more until Chouza and Inoichi made their purchases. The four of them made their way to seats, Shikaku keeping a careful eye on Inoichi, just in case. But when the opening montage of the film included a brief history and homage to the franchises that had gone before that vindicated Yoshino’s position, Shikaku saw something he never thought he would have seen before in his friend’s eyes. Adoration. Not lust. But adoration. It was almost as if Inoichi had found a long lost sister. And even though she spent as much time whispering plot points in Inoichi’s ear as she did leaning comfortably against Shikaku, for the first time in his dating career he felt that Inoichi wasn’t going to poach his girl.

It was freakin’ weird.

After the movie let out, the four were on their way to the dango shop, Yoshino continuing to awe Inoichi with her font of useless knowledge about Goketsu trivialities. Inoichi looked at Shikaku and positively beamed. Shikaku thought he’d never seen his friend look more like a…a…puppy before.

“Shikaku, she’s great! Where did you find her?”

Shikaku just shook his head. “I told you, you guys ditched me, left me for a mission to the Land of Rain,” he looked down at Yoshino, and smirked, “and I got stuck with her.” She smiled back up at him.

They were at the door of the dango shop when two ANBU appeared as if from out of nowhere. The four stopped in their tracks as one ANBU raised his hand. “Chouza Akamichi?”

“Yes,” Chouza answered carefully, wondering what this was all about.

“And Inoichi Yamanaka?” the ANBU asked turning his attention toward Shikaku’s other friend. Inoichi simply nodded.

“You two were on a mission to the Land of Rain during the chuunin exams recently, is that correct?”

Both Chouza and Inoichi acknowledge that that was indeed correct.

“Can you come with us, please. We have some questions about that mission.”

Chouza and Inoichi looked wide eyed at Shikaku and shrugged, then left with the two ANBU.

Yoshino and Shikaku went on in and split an order of dango. But there wasn’t much conversation to speak of. Shikaku was obviously curious and concerned about what his friends were needed for. They left after only a very short while.

As they’d walked towards her home his hand had slipped down to hers and their fingers twined together. Her hand was small in his and warm, soft too. It just felt so…right.

The clouds had cleared somewhat and since they were not as prevalent, scattering the moonlight, more constellations were visible. He’d started to point some out to her, but foolishly realized that she would have obviously had the same academy classes in astronomy and navigation by night that he had. So they’d made a game of it, to see who could point out a constellation first.

It had worked well until she had said ‘Corvus’ and he thought she said ‘Lepus’. He’d pointed one direction and she the other. This left them still holding hands on one side with their arms on the other side crossed. He took her right hand in his left and pulled her to him, seeing her face tipped up in the moonlight. He looked at her eyes, full of that same moonlight and thought that he could just fall right in. Dipping his face lower to hers he brushed his lips against hers.

When they pullled away from each other, her heart was hammering in her chest. When she’d been little, she’d found a baby bird once and held it in her hands trying to return it to its nest. She had felt its heartbeat racing beneath her fingertips. Yoshino wondered if Shikaku realized that’s how her heart was sounding now.

“I, uh, I, uh, should be getting on home…now,” she stammered.

He sighed and kissed the top of her head. “Okay.” Then hand in hand they’d finished the walk back to her home.

They stood on her front porch, time to say goodnight. This time his hand that wasn’t holding hers slid around to the small of her back, cinching her close to him. When she parted her lips beneath his and he slipped his tongue into her mouth tasting her, tracing and exploring her, she was thankful that he was holding her because she didn’t think at that moment she could stand on her own. She swayed into him, circling both her hands behind his head, drawing herself up against him, opening her mouth more to let him probe more deeply with his tongue.

Her blood was thrumming in her veins, heat deep inside of her like she’d never felt before. He slid his hands down from the small of her back, over the curve of her butt, lifting her against him. Sliding his hands back up he slid them under her tunic, up her hips, fingers at the waistband of her hakima, his hands warm against her skin, fingers dipping hesitantly against the waistband and…

The porch light came on.

“I–I–I should go now,” she stammered, pulling her face back from his but he still held her body tight against him.

Shikaku kissed his way across her cheek to rumble in her ear, “I’ll see you tomorrow? In the mission assignment room?” His voice was hoarse, his beard scratching against her cheek, wonderfully rough.

“Yeah…um…yes…I’ll…see you tomorrow,” she whispered back to him, and the two of them pulled apart slowly, fingertips lingering, still touching as she turned to walk in the door.

Shikaku took a deep breath, standing on the porch. It was going to be a helluva a long time until tomorrow morning. He hoped Inoichi and Chouza were back from their meeting with the ANBU freaks. What the fuck was that all about, anyway?

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and stand to make no profit from posting this story.

Chapter 2: Beginnings Are Such Delicate Times

Shikaku dashed through the streets of Konoha after Yoshino. The only good thing about this fuck up he thought to himself was that at least he’d stuck those two idiots he called friends with the bill. For once he was glad Chouza had selected barbeque.

He saw Yoshino turn the corner ahead of him and he sped up after her calling out her name, “Yoshino. Yoshino, wait up a minute.”

She stopped, hesitated then turned to look at him. “Yes, Nara? You want something?”

“I, uh, I, uh…my friends are jerks. Sorry that you overhead them back there,” he struggled, running his hand through his hair.

Yoshino arched an eyebrow and asked, “Just your friends, huh? They’re the jerks?”

“Yeah, well,” he gave her a lopsided grin, “I guess I am, too, sometimes.” Okay, whew, well, at least she hadn’t bitten his head off. Maybe there was still hope. Of course the fact that he was hoping for anything was bothering him somewhat. Just what the heck was going on here, anyway? Why did he care what his friends thought of her? Why did it matter if she was mad at him or not? To a certain extent, he meant what he said to Inoichi and Chouza – she was just a girl. She wasn’t anything special. Not really. So why was his mind tacking on a “not yet” to that stream of thought?

She relaxed just a little bit and said, “Well, at least you’re honest.” She gave him a faint smile and Shikaku found that he was fascinated by what it did to her eyes, they went from flinty to soft just like that. How did she do that?

Yoshino may have been relaxed but it was indeed only just a little bit. She asked guardedly, “So, um, if you want to call it off tonight…that’s okay…” her voice trailed off. It was probably better not to start anything in the first place, anyway she thought to herself, not exactly feeling sad, more like just a little wistful.

“What? Oh, wait, no, that was just, you know, shooting the bullshi…er, crap, er,…breeze with the guys. No, sure, I still wanna go.”

“You still want to go to dinner? I thought you were just eating now eating with your friends.”

Shikaku laughed. “You try eating with Chouza sometime. Yes, I am still hungry.”

She smiled just a little bit more and said, “Well, do you still want to meet at 7? It’s only 6 now. I was just at the barbeque picking up something for my dad. Mom’s out and he should be back before she is. I usually cook when she’s gone, but since we were going out tonight I thought I’d bring him something from the restaurant.”

“Oh, yeah, right,” Shikaku spoke lamely. Sixteen. Oh shit. She still lived at home with her parents. Shit, was he going to have to meet her parents? Well, at least not tonight, from the way it sounded. He and Chouza and Inoichi had had their own apartment for the last three years, and even though it usually looked as if a shinobi war had been fought there, it was blessedly parent-free.

They walked along to her house, chatting along the way. He learned that although she wasn’t the only shinobi in her family, there weren’t very many. Primarily her family were shopkeepers in the village, running a variety of grocery and dry goods stores. She learned that even though most of his close family were shinobi, there were actually very many in the Nara clan who were not, preferring instead to devote themselves to a life of research in chemistry and medicine. And also that he had had one brother who had died in the last shinobi war.

When they got to her home, she set the table for her father, left him a note and the bag in the kitchen and went to change clothes. Shikaku tried to look nonchalantly around the living room at family pictures and other things, all the while fearing that at any moment her father would return and he would have to actually talk to the man. He really wished she’d hurry up.

Yoshino didn’t take long. She appeared having changed into a blue silk tunic with white trim and black hakima to go with it. He smiled appreciatively and she positively beamed. While she was changing he had actually had a weird image of her in something gaudy, flashy, with too much make-up and jewelry. Shikaku was relieved to see her looking great, just looking like herself.

She’d teased him, asking if he wanted barbeque again but he smirked back that one visit to the barbeque restaurant today was enough to last him for quite some time thank you very much. They agreed on sushi and left.

At the restaurant they chatted some more, much to Shikaku’s amazement. There had been one extremely awkward moment when the magic SIXTEEN number had reared its cute little head again when it came time to order drinks and he realized she could only have soda. But the conversation had been fun nonetheless. It had always seemed like such an effort before to carry on a conversation with anyone. Too much work. He took great pride in the fact that the Ino-Shika-Cho team had progressed to the point in their relationship where most necessary communication could be carried out with a series of grunts or monosyllabic utterances with ’shit’, ‘piss’, and ‘fuck’ sprinkled liberally throughout the day, sort of like verbal commas.

This conversation with Yoshino, however, required some effort on his part. To be clever. To pay attention to what she said. To respond. To not use ’shit’, ‘piss’, and ‘fuck’ in all the normal places where he would have inserted them in what passed for a conversation with Inoichi or Chouza.

And it was actually…fun. He wanted to hear what she had to say. He wanted to see her eyes get all sharp if he did let the stray ’shit’ or ‘fuck’ slip in, then soften back up when he would change it to something like ’sheesh’ or ‘freakin.’

For Yoshino, it was a thrill to be here with someone her father would absolutely disapprove of. Not that she was using Nara, of course not. She really liked the guy and she couldn’t say why. Which made it really scary because any other time she’d had a crush on a guy before there had been some specific reason such as he was the cutest or the most handsome or the one that was the guy everybody else was crushing on that year. Shikaku was none of that. He was nice looking, sure, but certainly not “the” cutest or “the” most handsome. He was tall but not too tall, muscular but slender. So since there was no one thing she could put her finger on as to why she liked the guy she had to admit that it must be everything about him or else simply him. Which made it scary as all get out. She’d never felt this way about anyone before.

They’d finished dinner and sat awkwardly for a few minutes, Shikaku, with the word SIXTEEN still sneaking out and ambushing him every once in a while, feared she was going to say something awful like “curfew” or “bedtime” but fortunately she did not.

“Well, ah, thank you, Shikaku, dinner was lovely,” she said, not wanting this to end.

He didn’t either. “So, ah, do you need to get back home?” he asked and then hastily added, “Do you have an early mission tomorrow?”

“No, nothing particularly early,” Yoshino answered, glad that he seemed to not want the evening to end, either.

“Well, we could go see a movie or something.” As soon as the words left his lips he feared sitting through a chick flick for two hours. Why hadn’t he suggested something else, just tea and dango or something?

“That would be nice,” she said, waiting for him to suggest one.

“What would you like to see?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, you pick.”

Shikaku started to name something and then realized that every movie he knew that was out carried a “restricted rating,” no one under seventeen admitted without parent. The last thing he wanted to do was to end up somewhere with her where she was carded. “Tell you what,” he said hastily, “you name three you’d like and I’ll pick which one out of that three – fair?” He was hoping that there were only two chick flicks at the multiplex so that he would at least have one viable option.

Yoshino nodded and then thought for a minute. He was probably expecting her to pick one of the chick flicks that was out. Bleah – why did guys always think those were “date movies”? Still, it was probably expected. She tried to think of the name of the current Princess-what’s-her-face movie that was out. Misaka, that was it. Princess Misaka. She couldn’t remember the name of the movie but the character was Princess Misaka. There was also some documentary that was out. Boring. But if she threw that out, plus the Princess Misaka movie and her third choice, then maybe he’d pick the one she really wanted to see.

“Well,” she said, “There’s a Princess Misaka movie that I’ve heard a lot of people talk about and then there’s that documentary ‘The Road to War’ about the first shinobi war and then there’s… the new Jiraiya Goketsu Monogatari movie.”

“Jiraiya Goketsu?” he asked. “There’s a new one of those out?”

She nodded, her eyes positively beaming. “It’s supposed to be really good, better than the junk from Ryoto Industries for the last twenty years or so. This one is being compared favorably to the Kurasawa versions from the fifties and is supposed to be the most complete production and most faithful to the original storyline from the 1850s. The actor in the lead role has actually played Jiraiya Goketsu on-stage in all five of the Great Nations. The special effects are supposed to be out of this world, they’re done by Industrial Labs, the same people who did the Gojiro movies…”

Shikaku’s eyes were crinkled up and he was smiling that lopsided smile at her once again.

Yoshino blushed. “Did I…did I say something wrong?”

He just laughed and smiled at her. “You sound just like Inoichi. Come on, that’s the one. Let’s go.”

Title: Holding Out For A Hero

Pairing: Shikaku/Yoshino

Rating: T

Disclaimer: I do not own these Naruto characters and stand to make no profit from posting this story.

Summary: Written because a) I love Shikaku/Yoshino b) I love this song c) every girl needs her hero.

Note – this was my NaNoWriMo 2008 entry – 50,000 words in the 30 days of November 2008. Expect weak plot points, deus-ex-machina jutsu as needed, men being men and boys being boys with the original Ino/Shika/Cho trio as nineteen year-olds waffling back and forth between the two, corrupt Uchihas, adventure, shameless romance, breathless kisses, cameos by all three of the sannin, and total Jiraiya adoration.

Okay, hold on, here we go…

Holding Out For A Hero

Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where’s the street-wise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?
Isn’t there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and turn and dream of what I need – I need a hero…

The three boys lounged in the afternoon sun, missions completed for the day. Shikaku was lying on his back looking up at the clouds, Chouza leaned up against a tree finishing off a bag of chips while Inoichi sat on a small flat boulder, sharpening a kunai with a whetstone.

“So, you guys want ramen tonight? Or sushi?” Chouza asked.

Neither one answered.

“Guys, what’s it going to be?” Chouza wheedled.

Inoichi just smirked to himself.

Shikaku seemed to be dozing.

“Shhh, don’t wake him,” Inoichi whispered to Chouza with a wicked grin on his face.

“Wha-? Inoichi! Are you eavesdropping again?” Chouza grumbled.

Inoichi waved his kunai to silence his friend but Shikaku stirred.

“Finally, you lazy dolt you’re awake! Do you wanna go get ramen tonight or sushi?” Chouza asked once again, feeling slightly annoyed with his two teammates.

“What? Oh, um, yeah, you guys go on without me.” Shikaku yawned and stretched, rising to his feet.

Inoichi snorted with laughter.

Chouza looked disappointed.

“Have you got plans tonight, Nara,” Inoichi teased.

Shikaku slid a hand over his face, still trying to finish waking up. “Yea, um, I’m busy.”

Inoichi laughed again and leered at his friend, “Have you got a date? “

“Son-of-a-bitch! Inoichi, were you…”

“Hey,” the blond young man shrugged, “you were leaking like a sieve, I couldn’t help but pick up on it.” The way he drew out the word leaking held a nasty implication that made Shikaku scowl.

“I ought to…” Shikaku sent his shadow forward toward his teammate.

Inoichi just smirked and whirled away. Shikaku faltered as an image of Tsunade’s ample cleavage was sent directly into his mind which promptly stopped working. For the life of him, he couldn’t think of how to release the genjutsu and quite frankly didn’t want to.

“Guys! “ Chouza stepped between his two friends, grasping each one firmly by a shoulder. “Let’s go eat! Shikaku can tell us all about his date over dinner.”

“It’s not a date!” the black haired teen reiterated.

“Whatever. I’m hungry, barbeque it is, let’s go,” Chouza stated, settling the matter and turning his friends to head them back into town.

Some time later, at the grill, two boys snatching what bites they could between their friend Chouza’s greedy grabbing, all three discussed whatever crap it is that nineteen year old boys talk about.

“So, who is she?” Inoichi prodded.

“She’s just a girl, okay,” Shikaku answered, slumping down in the booth and looking disinterested.

“Well, is she a pretty girl? A tall girl, a …,” Inoichi hesitated and flicked his eyes at Chouza wanting desperately to know if she was a ‘fat’ girl but not wanting to ask it in front of his other best friend. “A….,” he floundered for a word, finally settling on “a voluptuous girl?” Then his eyes took on a wicked gleam and he added, “like Tsunnnaaaaadee?”

“Shit. Just shut up, okay?” Shikaku grumbled nearly spearing Chouza’s hand as he tried to snag a piece of beef for himself.

“So, who is she?” Inoichi continued to pester his friend.

“”Look you don’t know her, okay? She’s just a little chuunin. You guys ditched me and I was stuck grading those damned genin exams with her. I told her we’d get something to eat after the exams were over. That’s all. Okay?”

Shikaku, and in fact neither of the other two, had noticed that the door to the restaurant had opened and Yoshino had entered.

Yoshino thought she recognized Shikaku’s voice coming from the booth but she couldn’t see over the top of it. She started to walk around to greet him but stopped in her tracks as she heard the conversation and wondered if she was the subject of it.

“So, a chuunin, huh? How old is she?” Chouza asked, his mouth full of beef.

Shikaku scowled at his friend’s table manners. “Sixteen.”

Yoshino stood frozen by the hostess stand, realizing that they were indeed talking about her.

Inoichi leaned forward. “Sixteen? You sure? Not jail-bait, is she?”

Shikaku shoved his friend’s face away. “Look, you ass, it doesn’t matter if she’s sixteen or fourteen or twelve!”

Inoichi’s eyebrows shot to the ceiling and he whistled.

“Shit, fuck, pervert. It’s not like that. ” Shikaku didn’t know why he felt like acting like it was NOT a date in front of his friends because he had actually been looking forward to going out with Yoshino once the blasted exams were over. She’d had a lot of gopher duty for the proctors, the visiting kage’s and their assorted staff during the exams. Tonight was the first opportunity they’d had.

“It’s not like that because it’s NOT a date, okay? She’s just some little chit of a chuunin and I told her we’d get a bite after the exams, nothing more.”

“Can she cook?” Chouza asked, snagging the last bit of beef from the grill.

“How the hell should I know?” Shikaku snapped back. He couldn’t explain why he hadn’t wanted his friends to know about this but he just…didn’t. Damn! How awkward was this? Why did it matter? What did he care what they thought?

“Look at you squirm, Nara!” Inoichi was taunting, daring. Shikaku wanted to smack him silly. “You must really have it bad for this chick. Why do you want to keep her such a secret, huh?”

“Shit! Shut up Yamanaka!” He tried to rise to his feet and pushed his friend’s shoulder, “lemme outta this booth. I gotta go take a leak.”

Inoichi made a nasty comment about the real reason Shikaku was heading for the men’s room that made Chouza choke and sputter.

“Sheesh, you’d think I was married to you guys, or something. I miss one dinner and night out drinking with you two and it’s the end of the world. Boo hoo,” Shikaku made a great deal of rubbing his eyes like a crybaby. “Boo hoo, poor Inoichi, poor Chouza, What’ll they do if Shikaku’s not there? Guess you two are gonna end up playing grab ass with each other, huh?”

Chouza blushed and hissed. “Shikaku, keep it down, we’re in a restaurant. Can’t you take a little teasing about your date?”

“It is NOT a date!” Shikaku bellowed.

Just then he noticed the petite brunette glaring daggers at him as she accepted her bag of take-out and stalked out the door.

“Motherf–” Shikaku mumbled as he stared after her. “Yamanaka, you prick!” Inoichi had risen from the table to let Shikaku slide out of the booth and he rammed his shoulder into the blonde’s on the way out.

A/N: Okay, I feel compelled to re-iterate that this was written in a hurry (on-purpose) to fulfill the requirements of the challenge of getting 50,000 words down to create a complete novel within one month.

As for plot, well, it is what it is, sit back and enjoy the ride.

Orochimaru

Orochimaru brasileiro

Pros viciados em anime ai veja a semelhança.

Absinthe

“After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world.” – Oscar Wilde

Orochimaru stared at the milky louche that had a moment before been a golden-green that matched his eyes. Adding the water and sugar cooled, cut and sweetened the absinthe but it still remained a powerful intoxicant. Kabuto had left after preparing the glass. Let him wonder, Orochimaru thought, how he planned to lift it without the use of his arms. There were some things, he’d discovered, that it was best to keep Kabuto in the dark about.

Chakra strings and a great deal of self-control allowed him to lift the glass and take the first sip. Bitter. Sweet. Pungent. Cool. He forced himself to swallow it down, savoring the medicinal taste.

Medicinal. It made him think of Tsunade, seeing her again recently after all these years. She hadn’t changed a bit, still breathtakingly as beautiful as thirty years ago. He almost envied her that jutsu, the skill that allowed her to remain frozen in time, until he understood the cost of it. She was shortening her own life. He shook his head, revolted. Was her life so miserable without Dan that she would choose to commit what was, to his way of thinking, suicide? To deliberately deduct from the number of days Destiny had allotted her, what kind of death wish must she have?

Would bringing Dan back have made her happy once again? Would that have made her want to live again?

Taking another sip he thought back to the time when he had first discovered how to execute the resurrection jutsu. She was the first person he had thought of. He hadn’t seen her in years, but once he knew how it was done, he’d wanted to search her out and explain it to her, prove to her that he could perform it. She would have been happy once again then if he could have brought Dan back to her. He, Orochimaru, could have done what no one else could – make Tsunade smile.

He finished the drink, wincing at the bitterness. He hadn’t known how to find her. For years now, it had been in the back of his mind – if he devoted himself to her pursuit he could find her and could prove it to her. But something else always took precedence. When he finally did find her, he was broken, in need of her skills. She never would have believed him now. What he once would have offered as a gift he had to use as a bribe.

He wasn’t in love with her. He knew that. He loved Tsunade the way a man loved spring. But he wished so much he could hear her laugh again.

Beads of sweat formed on his forehead as he expended the energy and effort to lift the bottle and prepare a second glass. She had come to him but when exactly had she changed her mind? Had she truly ever been planning to use Jiraiya and that nine-tails brat as the sacrifices the jutsu would require? Had she been daring him to take Jiraiya’s life?

He let the absinthe linger on his tongue, developing an affinity for the bittersweet liquid, swirling it before letting it slide down his throat, cool and numbing.

Jiraiya. The white-haired goof had called him his friend when he had begged him to return to the village. He had never been a friend to that idiot, that bumbling fool. If Jiraiya wanted to think that they were friends, well he was welcome to continue to delude himself. Just because Jiraiya had always been the first of the team willing to sacrifice himself for the team, just because he’d saved Orochimaru’s butt more times than he cared to remember, just because he was always the first one to badger the other two into a celebration after a successful mission these things did not make him gallant, these things did not make him fun. They made him…annoying.

They were not friends. They never had been.

And just because Jiraiya lived his life out loud, trying to neither shorten nor lengthen his days but savoring every moment of life given to him that did not make him admirable.

There was nothing about him to envy. That was stupid.

And just because Jiraiya might have been the only shinobi in Konoha with a prayer of believing him when he told him the truth, just because he would have been the only one to have forced the council to sit still and listen to Orochimaru and just because once he knew the truth, the whole truth, he might have come with him, leaving the village behind, these things did not mean him missed him.

Because he didn’t miss him. He never had.

Orochimaru was close to exhaustion. He did not know why but he forced himself to prepare one more glass. If he was going to sleep at all after this fight he wanted it to be a sleep of total oblivion. He didn’t want to be disturbed by memories of teammates, friends and teachers.

Teacher.

Sensei.

Why?

Why had it all turned to hate? When did the love that he had for the man turn into such a festering wound that it consumed his every thought? He had things to do, skills to learn, jutsu to acquire. How could he let himself spend so much time hating the man?

Most people who knew the history of the two of them would assume it started when he was passed over for the position of Fourth Hokage. It was true that he had been outraged. But it was only after the death of Minato that he realized Sarutobi had been protecting both his own favorite student and himself. And after the fashion of his sensei, Jiraiya, Minato had sacrificed himself and his own son for the good of the village, never considering that Sarutobi was there to step back into his old political machinations once the danger was passed, “for the good of the village” of course.

Did Jiraiya even suspect how his student had been used?

What of Tsunade? Did she realize Sarutobi had orchestrated sending Dan on a mission for which he was vastly underqualified? Did she know that in a fit of pique, seeing how she loved the boy and due to his unparalled lust for her the old man had in effect ordered Dan to his grave and delayed her own team’s arrival?

His two teammates had been so deceived.

Why had he considered himself above that?

Why did it not occur to him that Sarutobi was using him, too? Encouraging his work. Checking on him every step of the way. Notes that he shared with only sensei. Why did he never suspect?

He had been so surprised at the betrayal, the disruption of his laboratory. Only Sarutobi’s weakness, his fear of losing political power had caused him to cave in to the council’s requests to investigate and shut him down if necessary. And there Sarutobi had stood, clothed in righteous indignation for the good of the shinobi accompanying him and acting shocked at what he’d seen. Sarutobi was brilliant and Orochimaru had fallen right into his trap. And that was when he began to hate him.

The man who had been there for him since his parent’s death, who had taught him and trained him and encouraged him had simply been fashioning a weapon, a tool to be used and discarded when no longer necessary. He was expendable, like Minato and Dan, nothing more than one more pawn to the old man.

Idly he wondered if the amount of love one held for another was proportional to the amount of hate that would follow in the event of betrayal.

He supposed that must be the case for hatred had indeed consumed him. He became obsessed with the thought of surpassing Sarutobi, of hurting him, watching him beg for his life and his beloved village of pawns. Most importantly, he was obsessed with killing him and watching him die.

And the most horrible thing in the world?

He had succeeded.

Cougars and Other Big Cats

“Shizune, what’s a cougar?” Tsunade asked her assistant as she leafed through the stacks of photographs, dossiers, and completed mission reports littering her desk.

“A cougar? Isn’t that a big cat, like a leopard or a panther?” the dark haired kunoichi responded to her boss.

“Well, why would anyone call me a cougar, then?” Tsunade queried again nonchalantly as she examined the two photographs she was holding, one in each hand.

Shizune coughed and tried to hide the furious blush that lit her cheeks by burying her face in her own stack of paperwork that she was sorting for her mistress on the other side of the office. “I don’t know,” she lied clumsily.

“Shizune!” Tsunade’s voice was mock stern – she knew when her assistant was bullshitting her. “Come on, tell me! You obviously know. You lie like a three year old caught with your hand in the cookie jar. What does it mean?”

“Well, ah, it depends on who said it I suppose,” Shizune was trying to find a way to tactfully explain this to Tsunade.

“These two,” Tsunade waved the photographs of Izumo and Kotetsu at Shizune. “As they were turning to leave, I heard Kotetsu whisper to Izumo something about ’see what the cougar’s up to now.’

Shizune groaned. They didn’t! They didn’t actually say that within earshot of their Hokage? Idiots!

“Well, Lady Tsunade, it’s a term used to describe an older woman…” Shizune began.

“Yeah? So? What’s the big deal? Why are you blushing like that, Shizune?” Tsunade leaned forward, more curious than actually bothered by whatever it was that was making the younger woman squirm like this. “Is it an insult or something?”

“Well, I suppose it depends on who said it and your personal views as to whether or not you would take it as an insult or… in some cases maybe even a complement.”

Tsunade merely arched an eyebrow and said, “Go on.”

Shizune sighed and squared her shoulders. “A cougar is an older woman with an interest in younger men. In some cases maybe even involved in a relationship with a younger man. Usually a much younger man. “

Tsunade actually laughed out loud when she finished. “A cougar! How in the world could anyone think that describes me? Who am I supposed to be involved with?”

Shizune motioned at the stacks of photographs in front of the two of them. “I can only suppose it has something to do with the project you’re working on to organize personnel files.”

The blond-haired sannin sat in her chair and laughed until her shoulders shook. It was the end of a long week and she was exhausted from merely doing paperwork. The boredom, the tedium! It was good to have a hearty laugh before the weekend. “Can I help it if the old man had separated his files into male and female regardless of abilities? And we all know why that was, don’t we – the old pervert! And just because I’ve already organized the kunoichi files and I’m working on the male shinobi they assume I’m up to something else? What do they think I’m doing – window-shopping?”

Shizune was so relieved that her mistress was amused rather than furious that all she could do was simply smile herself.

“Come on, Shizune, you’ve known me a long time. I’ve got a lot of faults, sake, gambling, but you can tell them yourself, boys are not among them.” She looked up at her assistant and saw the mixture of relief and exhaustion on her face. Shizune had worked as long and as hard this week as she had. “Go on, Shizune, I’m almost done here myself. Why don’t you go on home. It’s the weekend. Neither one of us should be here late.”

The brunette’s face brighted. “Thank you, Lady, I think I will. Is there anything you need before I go?”

“No, just leave it all where it is. I may sift through a few more files, but I’m pretty beat myself. I’ll probably be out of here soon. We’ll pick this up after the weekend.”

Shizune said goodbye and then ducked out the door, eager to go find Izumo and Kotetsu and give them a piece of her mind for insulting their Hokage that way!

Still chuckling, Tsunade sat back down at her desk, photographs and dossiers spread out in front of her. How was she ever going to absorb all of this information? She appreciated the laugh more than Shizune would ever realize. The task in front of her was in reality a very sombre one. It was up to her to pick and choose assignments and staffing for missions ranging from D-rank all the way to S-rank. And her decisions affected everything about these ninja’s lives, everything from pay-scales to choosing who was going out on those missions that might result in disabling injury or even death.

The sun had just set and it was the beginning of an early autumn evening, the air turning cool quickly after the light of day had faded from the sky. The Fifth Hokage thought she should fix herself a pot of tea and then reassessing the task at hand realized that this called for sake. She was alone in her office, Shizune wouldn’t be around to nag her about her drinking, and the Hokage Tower was blissfully empty. She pulled the desk drawer all the way out and reached in the back for the bottle she kept hidden there away from Shizune’s prying eyes. She stared at the arc of photographs spread out around her and took her first sip of sake.

The bite of the sake as it hit her tongue made her wince and smile just a little. That flicker of a smile brought back the silly thought from a moment ago, “cougar” indeed. The smile widened into a broad grin. “Cougar”, how ridiculous was that. Thinking of big cats, her mind drifted back to a story that her grandfather used to read to her. It was a story of an adventurer from a distant past who had traveled to a far away land. This adventurer wrote of being the guest of a great ruler, the Khan, leader of a vast empire bigger than any feudal lord could dream of. Her favorite chapter had been called “Of The Lions And The Leopards And The Wolves That The Khan Keeps For The Hunt.”

The story had fascinated her, she’d begged for it again and again as a little girl. She’d picture it in her mind’s eye, the pageantry, the procession. But what thrilled her the most was the idea of having those exotic animals at hand. The master of the hunt would know the prey they were seeking. He’d choose among his trained hunters, leopards, lions, wolves, or falcons. Magnificent wild animals you could never imagine being trained and yet they had been, trained but never broken because they mustn’t lose their instinct for the kill. And the Khan would send them out, knowing, trusting that they would take down their prey, complete their mission and return to him or else die trying. And they’d do it because that was what he’d trained them to do.

She turned her attention to the pictures again. The first two she picked up were the ones she’d originally been holding, Izumo and Kotetsu her faithful aides, bodyguards, assistants, whatever you wanted to call them. They served the office, they served her station, not so much herself. They’d answered all her questions when she’d first arrived, provided documents when asked and even knew which ones to make sure she had available even when she didn’t ask. She’d sent them out, too, numerous times, some missions diplomatic, some clandestine and best not spoken of outside her office. Sleek and lean they reminded her of hunting leopards, ever at heel, held on a silken lead she could let slip whenever she needed. They’d be off then, the two of them unleashed to pursue whatever she set before them, rippling, fluid, still young enough to give chase for the sheer beauty and joy of the chase itself.

But you couldn’t take down big game with just cats like leopards. Bigger game required bigger cats. She picked up another picture. Gai. Loud and roaring he was her lion. He stalked and was prideful and roared, loudly. She smiled. And just like real lions he wasn’t actually all that ferocious. They preferred to resolve a conflict with a show of force, rather than actually using force itself. But, well, if an opponent wouldn’t stand down, then Gai certainly did have the force to back it up. He could, and he had backed up his boasts with force. At her orders.

The next photograph made her catch her breath. Sakumo she almost whispered. She touched the mask, as if wishing she could slide it down and see the face of her old friend. But it wouldn’t be his face looking back at her, even if she could remove the mask in the picture – it would be the scarred face of his son, Hatake Kakashi. Was it possible that this was her friend’s baby that she’d held, asking Dan, “what do you think about this?” and “maybe we should just have one, too?” She shook her head, no, it wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be possible. God, she was old. And what was Kakashi? A lean and slinky black panther, restless; a cat with mismatched eyes, that hunted by himself.

She drew again from the stack and considered the picture she had selected, Nara Shikamaru, her newest chuunin. The Nara, shadow-ninjas, were perhaps the purest expression of ninja art out of all the clans in Konoha. They mastered the shadows. And Nara Shikamaru had become very, very good at what he did. Almost as good as his father had once been. He would soon surpass him. So Nara Shikamaru would be her jaguar, the painted cat who did not give chase but hid, dappled in the shadows and waited patiently to ambush his target.

She took another drink of sake. Sakumo was dead and Shikaku was a drunk. Minato and Hizashi too, were dead and gone. Fugaku had been killed by his own son. And she was left with a stable full of boys that she either remembered as babies, or else they’d been born and raised during the twenty-five years she’d been away. She knocked back the rest of the sake. To top it off, she was going to have to decide which of them went on which missions, very possibly, which of them lived and which of them died. Why in the hell had she ever taken this job in the first place?

There was another photograph, one she kept face down in the back corner of the drawer of her bedside table. It showed the three of them, the sannin, when they were still together. She thought of it now. It was not long after that picture was taken that she had run away to hide in the world. And Orochimaru…Orochimaru had become…something else.

As she was lost in her reverie, she heard a welcome voice call her name, “Oi, Tsunade, are you in there?” She brightened, there was one big cat she had left out. The tiger, fierce, commanding, beautiful, he was the biggest cat of all and the most powerful. Tsunade smirked, wondering if Jiraiya would appreciate the comparison. Fierce and noble and powerful yet the Khan had managed to tame even the tiger to the hunt.

Jiraiya poked his head around the frame of her office door. “Are you still working? Come on, let’s go get something to eat.”

She yawned and stretched, “Okay, sure, baka, let’s go.” As she grabbed her coat and closed her office door behind her, slipping her hand into his own large, warm palm, it occurred to her that she could not possibly be a cougar because romantically speaking, she had no use for boys. Men, on the other hand, were an entirely different species.

Tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forests of the night, what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry? – William Blake

A/N: My friend suggested there be a companion piece about Tsunade’s thoughts regarding the male shinobi to go along with Rainbows, which showed Jiraiya’s thoughts about the kunoichi. Rainbows is set after the time-skip, this one is set before but they are still intended to compliment each other.

Conversation With Killers

A clatter of pebbles at his window disturbed Jiraiya from the sleep that was eluding him anyway. He went to the window and opened it. “Who’s there?” the teenage boy called out into the night.

“It’s me, you moron,” his friend called back. “I know you were hoping for Tsunaaaaaade but you’re stuck with me.”

“Orochimaru, you jerk.” Jiraiya would have laughed but it hurt his side too much right now. “Come on in. You using the window or the door?”

“Open the door. I don’t feel like climbing through your window like some love-struck suitor in the middle of the night.”

Jiraiya walked slowly to the front door and let his friend in. He held himself straight, and tried not to wince, not wanting Orochimaru to know that he was injured. He flopped down on his couch at one end, motioning for Orochimaru to take the other. Jiriaya shifted carefully, trying to find a spot that was comfortable or at least less uncomfortable than the one he was currently in.

Orochimaru studied the white-haired boy carefully. His motions were strained, he didn’t move with his usual cat-like ease. They were stiff and slow, almost as if he were in pain. He looked up into his friends dark eyes and saw a different kind of pain, anguish, there; the one he’d come knowing he’d have to address. Jiraiya didn’t appear to be bleeding buckets all over the floor so he’d deal with that issue later.

“Soooo, how did it go?” he asked conversationally.

“Hmmmm, oh, well, I completed the mission.” Jiraiya’s words were clipped, completely out of character for him. The dummy usually gabbled on incessantly about whatever inane mission he happened to be assigned to, and usually embellished it with unbelievable encounters with bandits, rogue ninjas and beautiful princesses. No, as Orochimaru suspected something very different had happened tonight.

“Wanna talk about it?” Orochimaru tried to sound nonchalant. He didn’t know if he was fooling Jiraiya or not.

“No,” Jiraiya responded curtly.

Orochimaru sat and thought for a minute then asked. “Got anything to drink?”

“Beer, in the refrigerator. Help yourself. Bring me one too while you’re up, would you?”

Orochimaru muttered just loud enough for Jiraiya to hear him, “Deer-piss. Don’t you ever have any sake?”

“I don’t earn enough to keep sake on hand.” Jiraiya snorted back.

“Well, at least now you will.” Orochimaru stood beside him, handing him one beer and settling back down at his end of the couch with the second one. Jiraiya glared at him. He’d been trapped. Orochimaru had set him up with the sake comment and it had worked. It was a running joke between the three of them, himself, Orochimaru, and Tsunade, that he never would earn enough to keep himself stocked in sake. He started to reply and then thought that maybe if he just ignored it, Orochimaru would drop the subject.

“I mean, after this one, I’m sure you’ll be pulling down even more high ranked missions, won’t you?” Orochimaru asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I think you should.” Orochimaru whispered.

“Fuck, it was just a mission,” Jiraiya stretched one arm out over the back of the couch and turned his head to look out the window. “You’re making a big deal out of it.”

“It was a big deal.” Orochimaru responded. He’d snuck in and read the mission details and he’d been livid, furious that Sarutobi had sent Jiraiya. Sure, Hokage-sama would have had final approval, but he had given it to Sarutobi’s team and would approve whoever Sarutobi-sensei selected.

It would have been one thing to send either himself or Tsunade but to use Jiraiya for this was just…cruel. Orochimaru knew that he himself could kill without compunction, the mission was the mission after all, it was just what he was paid to do. He’d carried out several assassinations before. Tsunade had a certain moral compass to her but she could act without hesitating if she were truly convinced that the safety of her family’s sacred little village was at stake.

Jiraiya, though, was another case entirely. He had a sense of moral absolutism that was unshakable, a real anachronistic, gallant, “might for right” naivete. And Sarutobi had sent him on an assassination mission that was nothing short of cold blooded murder. The “rogue ninja” was a C-class criminal at best. As near as Orochimaru could find out from what he read, the guy had committed nothing more than some pretty hefty theft, certainly nothing close to a capital offense. But apparently he had pissed off some of the high muckity-mucks in the Land of Fire and in what passed for impartiality in the judicial system the orders came down for assassination. Not “capture and return for trial” Not even “wanted dead or alive.” No, the orders were clear – take him out because he’d pissed off somebody high enough to make that happen.

Orochimaru was almost shaking with rage when he had confronted Sarutobi about it. Neither he nor Tsunade had had any missions on their slate for the next three days, he argued. Either one of them could have easily handled this. And sure, from a skills standpoint, Jiraiya could have, too. But Jiraiya thought too much about these things and felt too much about these things. And Jiraiya had never killed any one at close range before. He’d probably been responsible for several deaths but always at a distance and always in a fight that he didn’t pick, always in defense of the village or his team. Nothing even close to this.

Sarutobi had simply dismissed him with a raised hand. It would be a good training exercise for Jiraiya. Jiraiya needed the experience. Orochimaru had wanted to puke.

The black haired teen had stared at his teacher in disbelief then turned and walked away. He realized then that he hated everything the old man and this stupid fucked up excuse for a village stood for. He actually didn’t give a rat’s ass about the C-class criminal. If the guy was stupid enough to pick enemies that powerful then they probably were doing everybody a favor by seeing that he was removed from the gene pool. But what he did care about was his friend’s old-fashioned, outdated, archaic sense of nobility and purpose. For all the jealousy he knew that Jiraiya held toward him when it came to skill in jutsus, this is what Orochimaru envied in his friend the most. It was something he felt he would never have – an unfailing sense of right and wrong.

And if Sarutobi broke that, if Sarutobi ruined that then Orochimaru was scared shitless that he didn’t know what he might do.

Orochimaru’s dirty little secret, the fear that coiled in the bottom of his stomach like a snake preparing to strike during the entire time Jiraiya was on this mission was the realization that Jiraiya was his moral compass. Tsunade had her own, incomplete, skewed version that erred toward the village always being right, but at least she had something. He, Orochimaru had none. He found that Jiraiya served as a sounding board, a way to let him know if his actions were going too far. And if he didn’t have that, well, then he didn’t know what he might do.

Orochimaru took a long drink of his beer. “Sooo,” he drawled lazily hoping to provoke a reaction out of Jiraiya, “how does it feel to be a cold-blooded killer like the rest of us now?”

Jiraiya gave a half laugh. “There’s nothing cold blooded about it.”

Orochimaru studied him carefully. “How’d you do it?”

“Kunai. To the throat.” He hesitated then added, “I didn’t throw it, I stabbed him.”

For just a moment, Orochimaru was angry at his friend – how stupid could you be to put yourself in harm’s way intentionally? But now was not the time to berate. “Why’d you do that?” he asked simply.

“Dunno. I guess I just wanted to be able to look him in the eye. Is that stupid or what?”

“It’s not stupid,” Orochimaru lied. Of course it was stupid. It was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard of. It was something he would never do. But he lied because he knew it was what Jiraiya wanted to hear. And part of him treasured the fact that the big dummy had cared enough about his victim’s humanity to do that.

“Hey, Orochimaru, do you think…do you ever wonder, if the guys we kill, if they have families? If somebody misses them? If those people think we’re the bad guys?”

“Sure, everybody wonders that,” once again Orochimaru lied. Although, part of him wished that he really could wonder and worry about these things the way Jiraiya did. He knew he wasn’t normal and sometimes he wanted so badly to be nothing but normal.

“I didn’t think it would be so hot, his blood. I didn’t think there would be so much of it.” He looked at his friend and smiled the faintest, saddest smile Orochimaru had ever seen on that big goofy face of his. “There’s nothing cold-blooded about it at all. You know that, right?”

And he did want to know that, desperately so. But he couldn’t answer because the truth was he’d never felt anything at all when he’d killed anyone. He was cold, dispassionate, a perfect weapon called a shinobi. Orochimaru nodded briefly just to satisfy his friend. Maybe, at least, he could care about Jiraiya. Thoughts of blood then caused Orochimaru to glance at his friend. The other boy’s shirt had a red tinge seeping through near his ribs. “You’re hurt,” the raven-haired boy said matter-of-factly.

“It’s nothing,” Jiraiya shrugged.

“Still, let me look at it.” Orochimaru insisted

Jiraiya hmphed and pulled up his shirt. He inhaled sharply as slender fingers probed gently at the raw edges of the kunai-wound beneath his ribs. “It’s a clean cut, not too jagged. Doesn’t seem to be any trace of poison. Does Sarutobi-sensei know?” Orochimaru asked.

“No, I-I just told him I had completed the mission and came on back here,” was his friend’s answer. Orochimaru’s fingers were now splayed delicately, further apart on his skin than the actual wound. Jiraiya found it comforting to have his cool touch there, near, but not actually on the torn tissue.

“Did you go to the medical center?” Orochimaru’s voice was full of concern. Jiraiya shook his head ‘no.’

“Well, you at least ought to let Tsunade look at you, you’ll probably have a scar if you don’t.” Orochimaru thought that if Jiraiya was avoiding both their sensei and the medical ninjas he might at least trust their own teammate.

“Hah,” Jiraiya laughed softly. “She’ll just scold me for getting hurt in the first place.”

“At a minimum, we should clean it properly, so you don’t get infected, you moron.” Orochimaru rose and walked to Jiraiya’s bathroom, loudly cursing the inadequate first aid supplies he found in the cabinet.

After finishing his ministrations and re-shelving the supplies he came and knelt down by his friend’s side. “You want me to go get Tsunade?”

“No.” Jiraiya sighed, leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes. “Thanks.”

“Okay.” He returned to his end of the couch to finish his beer. He sat in his corner, watching his friend drift off to sleep.

“Orochimaru?”

“Yeah?”

“Would you stay?”

“Yeah…Sure.”

Trinity

A/N: Of all the things I’ve written in the Naruto fandom, I think this is my personal favorite. Set during their teenage years, the Three Legendary Sannin are snippy and snarky and stuck with each other in a cheap hotel on a dark and stormy night. Cliche, I know, but the idea was too fun to pass up.

“Tsunade, you lost,” Orochimaru said matter of factly, ignoring her pleading look.

“Jiraiya,” she whined turning her head to look at her other teammate. “What about you, aren’t you named after a gallant folk hero or something?”

“Tsunade, you lost, fair and square,” he chuckled. “Man up, you’re sleeping on the floor.” He flopped down on the rickety couch in the room and tried to get comfortable.

Orochimaru lay back on the bed and closed his eyes as well. Tsunade looked around the cheap hotel room in a mixture of dismay and disgust. They had been on their way back from a mission when a terrible thunderstorm came upon them. Normally, they wouldn’t have minded sleeping outside while traveling to and from missions, but this was a torrential downpour of epic proportions. They’d hurried as fast as they could to the nearest shelter.

Tsunade was thinking they may have been better off to take their chances in the storm. This place lowered the bar in terms of flea-bitten motels. She scratched her arm subconsciously, then realizing what she was doing, shivered. *Ugh* This place probably was crawling with fleas…among other things.

First she’d lost at drawing cards for the bed. Orochimaru won that. Then she lost to Jiraiya at jan-ken-pon for the couch. She sighed heavily and slumped to the bathroom to change out of her wet clothes.

“Oh, no!” she exclaimed from the small room.

“Whassa matter?” Jiraiya mumbled. Orochimaru just sighed and turned over, pulling one pillow over his ears.

“My spare clothes in my bag are all wet!” She whined.

“Won’t bother me if you sleep naked, Hime,” Jiraiya chuckled. “Besides, I told you that pretty little bag you bought would leak.”

“Ji-Rai-Ya!” she threatened.

“Fine, fine, there’s a spare shirt in my bag. You can wear that.” The white haired sannin replied.

She huffed back out in her still soaking clothes and yanked the spare shirt out of his bag.

Then she stomped back into the bathroom to change. It felt good to get into the oversized shirt, soft and thankfully warm and dry. She looked around to find a place to hang up her wet clothes to dry. Orochimaru’s clothes hung neatly over the entire shower curtain rod. Jiraiya’s were piled in a heap in the floor. She shoved Orochimaru’s aside to make room for her own, kicked Jiraiya’s for good measure and huffed back into the bedroom.

She stood with hands on her hips, chest heaving. She was so …angry…at this whole mess. Her teammates were such jerks. She looked around the room. Orochimaru appeared to be sleeping peacefully in the bed. Jiraiya was leaning with his head over one arm of the couch and his feet hanging over the other end. He had one arm sprawled across the back of the sofa, the other trailing on the floor, and a ratty blanket half on, half off his lower body. Well, she thought to herself, at least Jiraiya looks uncomfortable.

Wait a minute, where did he get the blanket? She stalked over to him and leaned over. “Jiriaya,” she hissed, “Where’d you get the blanket?”

“Orochimaru gave it to me. Said he didn’t need it on the bed, it was too hot.”

“Well, where’s my blanket?” She asked loudly, turning her threatening gaze toward her other partner. She had to agree with Jiraiya on the hot part, though. This place was an oven, hot and muggy. The thunderstorm outside wasn’t even doing much to cool things off. She didn’t want a blanket ON her so much as UNDER her on that nasty floor.

“Tsunade, there are usually spare linens in the closets. Did you look?” Orochimaru answered her rather calmly.

She gritted her teeth. Damn him, he was using that oily-sweet-calm voice of his just to irritate her.

She nearly yanked the closet door off its hinges. She rummaged around and found a couple of sheets but no blanket and more importantly no pillow.

“There’s no pillow!” she announced loudly to the room.

“Hey, I don’t have a pillow, and you don’t hear me complaining,” Jiraiya answered her.

Her eyes narrowed to slits and she looked at the bed. “Orochimaru, you have two pillows!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, and I need them both,” he replied, trying to burrow even deeper between them.

“Why do you need two pillows?” she demanded.

“If you’re going to talk all night long then I need them both to cover my ears!” he snapped, sitting up and clutching the two pillows possessively.

“Give me a pillow!”

“No!”

“Give. Me. A. Pillow!” She said through gritted teeth.

“Better give her one, Orochimaru,” Jiraiya chuckled, “or she’ll rip them apart trying to take them from you.” With a sigh, he closed his eyes and tried to picture that: She and Orochimaru, black and blond hair flying wildly as they lock in mortal combat over a pillow. The pillow would be ripped savagely in two, feathers fluttering madly in the air. As the pillow gave way, the two combatants would fall into each others’ arms at that very moment realizing the passion that was flaring between them…. Jiraiya closed his eyes, a blissful smile on his lips.

“Fine!” Orochimaru relented, handing her one. “Just shut up, will you.”

“Fine!” she hissed back at him, snatching the pillow out of his hands.

Tsunade did the best she could with the ratty, nasty sheet she had pulled from the closet. It was only marginally better than the nasty carpet itself. She knew the carpet had never been cleaned. At least she could pretend that the sheets had been washed once or twice in their mournful existence, but *ugh* she was pretty sure it hadn’t been recently.

Two of the three legendary sannin slumbered peacefully. The third tossed miserably on the floor. Tsunade’s hair clung, sweaty to the back of her neck. She felt gross beneath the grimy sheets. Jiraiya’s snoring irritated her no end. Orochimaru’s peaceful, even breathing was more bothersome to her still. She huffed. She puffed. She sighed. She turned this way and that, twisting in the sheet.

She froze.

Had she just imagined it or had something … scurried… past her?

She thought she heard something… a scritch scritch scritch sort of sound.

There was something on the floor with her! Crawling around her!

It might actually crawl…on her.

It might actually get in her hair.

She squirmed.

It scritch-scritch-scritched again.

Tsunade held her breath, eyes wide in the dark. Oh dear God where was it? What was it?

Jiraiya snored.

Orochimaru breathed peacefully.

The creature scritch-scritch-scritched and darted across her legs.

Tsunade screamed and in one quick leap she was on Jiraiya, scrambling to get on top of the back of the couch.

With an ‘oomph’ Jiraiya set up quickly, rubbing his eyes and knocking Tsunade to the floor. She clawed her way back on top of him.

“Sheesh, Tsunade, all you ever had to do was ask,” he said sleepily.

“Shut up!” Orochimaru snapped switching on the light and sitting up in bed. “What is wrong with you people!”

“There’s something on the floor,” Tsunade rasped out in a hoarse whisper, chest heaving. She pointed a trembling finger to the corner. “It’s over there.”

Orochimaru rolled his eyes. “Tsunade, did I not just see you take out an entire squad of the enemy’s equivalent of ANBU by yourself on this mission? Do you not summon slugs, woman!?”

“Don’t worry, Tsunade, we’ll get it,” Jiraiya said soothingly then added, “Orochimaru, get it.”

Orochimaru sighed in exasperation. Jiraiya had Tsunade on his lap, one hand around her waist. The t-shirt was bunched up around her hips. Orochimaru imagined the boy’s other hand sliding up under the shirt onto what was undoubtedly warm smooth skin beneath, up, up, up higher still…

Tsunade’s chest continued to heave in a most fetching manner. Damn toad brat had all the luck he grumbled to himself.

Orochimaru kicked off the thin, thread-bare sheet and stood up mumbling, “If it will get you two to shut up…”

He stood stock still and listened. Listened to Tsunade’s gasps, listened to Jiraiya’s warm murmurings soothing her. Listened until he heard it… scritch scritch scritch.

In one slippery smooth, lightning fast motion he had snatched the mouse up by its tail.

Jiraiya was impressed, he loved to see Orochimaru move like that. It was so damn… sensual. Aw hell, it was just plain sexy. Almost made him wonder… what would it be like to…

“Is this what’s bothering you, Tsunade-chan?” Orochimaru taunted, approaching her and holding the dangling rodent by its tail.

“Get it away, get it away, get it away…” Tsunade whimpered, turning toward Jiraiya, burying her face in his hair.

Jiraiya patted her shoulder. “Tsunade, Orochimaru is right. You summon slugs. Frogs and snakes don’t seem to bother you either. Why does this bother you so much?”

“Frogs and snakes and slugs don’t have little claws and twitchy little whiskers and pointy noses and beady little eyes,” she mumbled, her face still buried against his shoulder. “Get rid of it,” she pleaded.

“Fine,” Orochimaru shrugged, “guess I’ll just eat it then.”

Tsunade’s head snapped up. “You will not! Just put the poor little thing outside.”

Orochimaru leaned his head back, raising the rodent higher.

“Jiriaya, make him stop. Don’t let him do it.”

“Come on, Orochimaru, just put it outside will you?” Jiraiya said, reaching up. His hand completely encircled Orochimaru’s wrist.

Orochimaru froze, eyes blazing at Jiriaya. Tsunade felt Jiraiya’s whole body stiffen, his arm around her waist tighten just a fraction. For the very briefest instant the tension between the two of them was palpable, electric in a most deliciously, unmistakably male kind of way. She licked her bottom lip and swallowed hard. It was…exciting.

“Come on Orochimaru,” she whispered hoarsely, “just put it outside.”

“Sure. Fine. Whatever,” he said flippantly walking to the window and putting the mouse outside.

Orochimaru went back to bed. Tsunade looked forlornly at the rumpled sheet on the floor then up at her partner. “Orochimaru, please,” she whispered softly, bottom lip trembling, making her best puppy-dog eyes at him.

“Oh, all right,” he huffed, sliding over in the bed and raising the sheet, offering her sanctuary. She scampered over, snatching up her pillow off the floor and jumped on the bed beside him. She clambered over him, keeping his body between her and the side of the room where the mouse had been found. Orochimaru smirked at Jiraiya and turned out the light.

Two of the three legendary sannin slumbered peacefully on the bed. Jiraiya twisted and turned on the couch, unable any longer to get comfortable. Damn, he had a crick in his neck. He flopped on one side. Now his back hurt. He sighed and turned over on the other side. Now his…

Snap!

Now his head was lower than his feet because the legs on that end of the couch had broken. “Crap! Tsunade, you broke the couch,” he cried out.

“Sorry,” she whispered and giggled. He swore he heard Orochimaru giggle too.

Jiraiya stood up to survey the damage. He grumbled to himself about the fact that if women were going to go around breaking the furniture that he was sleeping on there ought to be a little bit more fun involved first. He sighed. There would be no fixing this tonight.

He stomped around to the side of the bed where Tsunade was sleeping. “Move over,” he groused.

“Jiraiya, there isn’t enough room in this bed for the three of us,” Orochimaru said over Tsunade’s head.

“There is if you spoon up,” Jiraiya answered, pulling up the sheet and slipping under it beside Tsunade.

“I don’t want to ‘spoon’ up to anybody in this heat,” Orochimaru snapped. He grudgingly slid to the edge of the bed on his side. Tsunade wiggled over. Orochimaru had to grab her to keep from falling off the bed. She giggled and turned herself so that her back was to him, in effect spooning herself up against him. He’d grabbed her around the waist to keep from falling and as she turned on her side, she shifted so that his hand was now on her hip.

There seemed to be some sort of silent negotiation going on between Tsunade and Jiraiya Eventually he ended up with the pillow and she ended up using him as a teddy bear, one arm thrown around his waist, head nestled against his chest. In a short time the two of them were breathing softly and evenly.

Two of the three legendary sannin slumbered peacefully on the bed. Orochimaru lay for long minutes with his eyes open, thinking. This wasn’t exactly comfortable but it was …comforting.

Tsunade was warm and pleasant beside him. She spooned, as Jiraiya called it, nicely up against his body, his chest against her back, their hips close together, legs tucked and touching each other’s their whole length. He let his hand slide from her hip, up beneath the bunched t-shirt to the dip of her waist. It was a marvelous curve, almost as if it had been made just for him to hold her there. She sighed softly. That was better, that was more comfortable he thought to himself as he let the flat of his palm rest against her belly.

Orochimaru’s eyes were getting heavy now. He tucked his head down against Tsunade’s smelling sweet jasmine in her hair. But it wasn’t just jasmine he smelled, there was a pine and forest fragrance too. Dimly he recognized this as Jiraiya’s scent.

Jiraiya shifted and Orochimaru realized that when he had moved his head nearer Tsunade’s he must have lain it on Jiraiya’s hand. He raised his head a fraction and in sleep his friend lifted his hand and let it come to rest on Orochimaru’s hair. Orochimaru found this both comfortable and comforting.

His eyes were very heavy now. He yawned once and closed them, quite comfortable.

And the three legendary sannin slumbered peacefully.