(no subject)
Things were mostly normal for the rest of the trip, until Naruto began acting oddly a few hours after they started moving on the second day.
"What is it?" Kakashi called after the teenager had glanced behind him for the twelfth time.
". . . it's nothing," Naruto said.
Kakashi raised his visible eyebrow.
"I have the feeling we're being followed," Naruto explained.
Sakura glanced behind her, and then over at him. "I don't sense anyone."
"Me neither," Sasuke replied a moment later, after checking.
"I can't smell anyone but us," Kakashi said.
Naruto nodded. "Yeah. Okay."
He didn't sound convinced, though; and Kakashi noticed that he was still glancing behind and beside him as they moved, just a little more subtly now.
Finally Kakashi tugged his mask down enough that his nose wasn't covered. He felt the usual flash of irritation when he flinched reflexively at the sudden increase of sensory input, but checked the air.
"There's nothing out here," Kakashi said, pulling the mask up again. "Just us."
Naruto nodded, and stopped looking around.
~~
Naruto had the second watch that night. When he traded off with Kakashi, he waited for several minutes after he was certain the man had fallen asleep before shaking Sakura awake. He hesitated a second before waking Sasuke up as well, by kicking him in the soles of his shoes.
He motioned for them to follow him, and they settled in a tree that was far and high enough they wouldn't be overheard, but still close enough that they could see Kakashi and anyone who would have been coming up to him.
"Make a barrier," Naruto said when Sasuke landed on the branch.
Sasuke reflexively gave him an irritated look for the order, but did so. He had to borrow several of Sakura's kunais to seal off the space below them as well as around and above, and told them not to let their feet dangle.
A few minutes later, he eyed the kunai jammed into the trunk above Naruto's head. "The angles are too awkward. A strong attack will break it."
"Can anyone hear us?" Naruto asked.
"No."
"Then it's good enough. We're being followed," Naruto told them. "By foxes."
They didn't even get a chance to speak. Naruto shook his head at their looks. "I swear--he says they're there. He says they're invisible, that's why nobody can see them. I can't, either, but I can kind of feel them."
"It," Sakura said quietly.
"Right," Naruto said. "It. Yeah. It says they've been following us pretty much since we left the Sand."
Sakura made a small hand motion. "But . . . invisible foxes? Like . . . what, like a genjutsu?"
Naruto shook his head. "I don't think a genjutsu would last this long. Or if it did, wouldn't you or Kakashi-sensei have noticed by now? And, hell, it's only been us--there hasn't been anyone to catch me in one. They're real, they're just. . . ."
"Do you mean fox spirits?" Sasuke said.
Naruto scratched his head. "Maybe?"
"Well, ask whether they're real or spirits."
"Don't just say that like it's easy!" Naruto snapped at him. Sasuke didn't change his expression.
A moment later Naruto snarled something under his breath and pulled a leg up to his chest. He rested his arm on his knee and hid his face behind it.
Sakura and Sasuke waited. Sakura kneaded her fingers against the old bark of the tree. Sasuke kept a hand near the pack containing his shurikens.
". . . He says they're kitsune-tsukai," Naruto said a few minutes later. He looked at Sasuke. "What are kitsune-tsukai? He's being insulting about them."
Sasuke frowned. "Are you sure?"
"Yes I'm fucking sure," Naruto answered.
"They're. . . ." Sasuke shifted to a sitting position, still frowning as he tried to remember old information. "Chartered fox spirits," he said. "They're supposedly bound to a person who can control them and give them orders. A kitsune-mochi," he said, recalling the term.
Naruto snorted slightly. "Where did you learn all this junk?"
"I made Tayuya tell me everything she knew about foxes when I learned about you," Sasuke replied.
Naruto's fingers curled slightly.
". . . That was useful," Sakura ventured.
"It was like eating glass," Sasuke said. "They shouldn't be here. All onmyouji and animal spirit users were practically exterminated decades ago."
". . . oh! Right!" Sakura said. "That was mentioned in our history class. Before the Great Ninja War started, they were cleared out first. It was . . . Lightning country they evacuated to, since it doesn't border any of the other major ninja countries."
Sasuke gave her a sideways look. Naruto blinked.
"You remember stuff from that far back?" he asked.
"It was interesting," Sakura said in her defense. ". . . And Iruka-sensei said he would include it on one of the tests."
Sasuke and Naruto just stared at her. Sakura made an annoyed face. "Well, I didn't remember it until Sasuke used onmyoujutsu during the surgery! I went and looked it back up after that."
Naruto looked like he wasn't sure whether to laugh or call her a nerd. Sasuke just glanced back at Kakashi.
"It's illegal to use that kind of majutsu in any of the countries," she added. ". . . I think even Lightning forbids it, since it's so dangerous to others?" She looked at Sasuke. He shrugged a shoulder to show he didn't know that much.
Naruto frowned. "Then why are they here? Who would be able to. . . ."
Akatsuki.
The three of them were silent for a few moments.
"So now what?" Naruto asked, looking at Sakura.
"We should get back to Konoha as fast as possible," she said. She glanced at Sasuke. "Can the foxes do anything to us?"
Sasuke still had his face turned away. "I can't think of anything," he said after considering it.
Sakura pushed herself into a crouch. "Then, we're only half a day away. Let's wake Kakashi-sensei up and run for it."
Sasuke started pulling the kunais free, breaking the barrier.
~
Kakashi didn't look entirely believing of their explanation--especially since magic users had been dispelled from Fire country before even he was old enough to go on the battlefield--but he was willing to believe that there was someone out there chasing Naruto. And when it came to Akatsuki, frankly, anything went.
He said as long as they stopped so he could catch a fifteen minute nap around dawn, they could make it back to Konoha by late morning.
~~
They were half an hour from Konoha when they were attacked again. The ninjas still lacked forehead protectors, but this time they used hand seals common to the Hidden Grass, and some were carrying scythes.
Some of the chuunin looked weary, and Kakashi suspected they had been running all the way from Kusa. Other of the chuunin looked scared, and Kakashi learned why ten minutes in.
There were three groups of four, each which approached from different angles. The groups had been poorly put together--there were imbalances of taijutsu and ninjutsu users in each one. There were also two jounin leading the groups, and another man (who probably would have been a jounin if he'd had the time to polish his skills and tactics) leading the third; and when it became obvious that they were going to lose, they started killing off their chuunins in the midst of fighting the four of them.
Kakashi was both glad and annoyed to have his team underestimated. The Grassnins' tactic of overwhelming them with numbers was automatically nullified because of Naruto's presence. If he had been more tired . . . if Naruto hadn't managed to regain enough chakra control that he wasn't draining his stamina with the smallest tasks . . . if Sakura had still been in unfamiliar terrain . . . then there might have been trouble.
Kakashi was old enough to prefer a quick slaughter to a straining fight, but he didn't like being held up by such sloppy planning. If he had had the time, he would have been irritated.
He didn't have the time because Sasuke had disappeared--Allowed himself to be separated from the rest of us, Kakashi corrected--with the almost-jounin.
Kakashi noticed from the corner of his eye that Naruto used the Body Flicker jutsu to pin one of the chuunin before joining Sakura, who was trying to keep the second jounin from killing off the rest of the chuunins. Then Kakashi's attention was distracted by the first jounin, who had recognized him.
Sometimes it sucked to be famous, Kakashi thought to himself, as he dodged a scythe.
Despite the imbalance of power between the Grass and the Leaf, the jounin were still jounin. The fight was messy, and everyone was bleeding by the end, even if Naruto healed quickly enough that it wasn't very noticeable.
"Damn!" the blond swore as he stared down at the dead chuunin. He started to run a hand through his hair before remembering there was blood on it. "Maybe if I shift that last seal. . . ."
"This one's going to die," Sakura said, examining the jounin that she and Naruto had been fighting.
"Well, there's still this one," Kakashi said, pointing a thumb at the jounin he had pinned down with wires and the chain of the scythe. He wanted to scan the area for Sasuke, but as long as the Grassnin was conscious, he wouldn't risk looking away.
When Sasuke did rejoin them soon after, he had the sense to announce his presence loudly. Since Naruto and Sakura were picking up weapons, it was a wise choice.
Sasuke was dragging the almost-jounin. Kakashi noticed that the man was unconscious, that there was hardly a mark on him, and that Sasuke's eyes were in the sharingan.
Before he could say anything, Naruto pointed a finger at the other teenager. "Don't run off on us!"
"I had to separate this one from the others," Sasuke replied, letting the Grassnin drop.
Beside Kakashi, Sakura knelt next to the jounin. He took advantage of her presence to shift his gaze to Sasuke.
"You can do that jutsu in a group, too," he said, "as long as you have someone to keep watch as you do."
"Who else is coming?" Sakura asked the jounin.
Sasuke glanced at Kakashi without turning to face him. "With this many attackers, we couldn't afford to have half the group be still for several seconds."
Kakashi pressed his lips together and gave the teenager an annoyed look.
Naruto moved to slap the back of Sasuke's head, but Sasuke shifted away. "Bastard, next time wait until we've thinned them out more and then do whatever you did. Just tell us beforehand so we can watch your back."
Sasuke folded his arms. "Announce an attack? Braggart."
"Don't twist my words, asshole."
There was a crack, and the jounin let out a short, sharp scream. Kakashi, Sasuke, and Naruto turned to look.
"Who else is coming?" Sakura repeated.
She gave the jounin ten seconds to reply, and then broke his other thumb. The man screamed again through clenched teeth.
Sakura shifted into a crouch, folding her arms casually on her knees. "Thumb breaks are the worst of all the fingers," she told the Grassnin. "If you won't talk to me, we're going to have to carry you back to the Leaf, and those bones will jar with every jump."
She pushed on his forehead, tilting his head up so that he was forced to look at her. "If I re-fuse the bones in the wrong alignment, you're never going to be able to form hand seals or hold weapons properly again," she said in an easy tone. "Your use is over. Who else is coming?"
When the man didn't reply after another ten seconds, Sakura let his head drop and reached for his right pointer finger.
"Let me try," Sasuke said, eyelids lowered halfway.
Sakura gave him a curious look, but pulled her hands back and pushed the jounin towards him. Kakashi folded his arms.
Sasuke hauled the Grassnin up by his vest collar, and punched him once. The man jerked his head back up, glaring at Sasuke--and then froze.
When Sasuke let go of his collar a few seconds later, the man sank to the ground. Sasuke frowned.
Sakura crouched next to the man again and looked at Sasuke, who was now staring at the almost-jounin. She cleared her throat quietly; and when he made a small hand motion, she looked to the Grassnin. "Who else is coming?"
"Just us," the man said in a hollow voice.
Sakura appeared startled, but it didn't show in her voice. "Where are the people you had to report to at?"
The man didn't answer, so Sakura broke the question down. "Were you to report our deaths?"
"Yes," the man said in that same voice.
"Where are they at?"
The man hesitated.
"Answer her," Sasuke said, walking over to the almost-jounin.
". . . Just inside the border," the man said.
Sakura nodded. "They can't reach us before we get back, then." She started to reach into her medical pack.
Sasuke glanced over again even as he picked up the second man. "I can't guarantee he's telling the truth," he warned.
Naruto moved to help, and Sasuke started dragging the man forward before the blond could reach him.
"He is," Sakura replied. "It's the tone." She pulled out the small bottle of liquid she had been using on the Soundnins and checked the amount left. "How did you do that?" she added, raising an eyebrow at him. "It takes hours on seasoned men."
"I convinced him of the hopelessness of his situation," Sasuke said, making an irritated noise when Naruto grabbed the man's feet and yanked them up with a glare, leaving both of them a little unbalanced for a second. "If it would have taken you hours, why start now?"
Sakura pulled the cloth away from the man's face. "I was going to break his main fingers and leave him conscious until we reached Konoha. That could make him more likely to talk once we got there."
"Crass," Sasuke muttered as he dropped the other man's shoulders beside her. Naruto let go of his feet as well.
"It's not pretty work," Sakura retorted, quietly, as she packed the bottle and cloth away.
"Will you do me a favor?" Sasuke asked, looking at her. "Compare the chakra flow of these two."
". . . Okay," she said, resting a hand on the jounin's forehead. Kakashi tried to catch Sasuke's eyes, but the other teenager had folded his arms and was staring resolutely at Sakura. A moment later, though, he sat down beside the second Grassnin. Naruto watched him from the corner of his eyes.
Sakura shifted her fingers lightly over the man's forehead. "The damage is pretty centered, but it's deep . . . I can't believe you managed to make him speak so quickly."
Sasuke rubbed the heel of his hand against his temple, closing his eyes. "I told you, I used the mangekyou to overwhelm him with the knowledge he couldn't escape. It was one of. . . ."
Sasuke didn't finish the sentence, and rubbed his temple again.
Kakashi began to wish he had brought his headache medicine with him. He didn't take it on missions because it made him drowsy, but it wouldn't have been an issue in this case.
It probably would have been better if Sasuke had fallen asleep, actually. Easier.
Sakura pulled away from the first Grassnin and moved to the second one, the almost-jounin. She rested her hand on his forehead.
And a second later, she jerked back so quickly that she wound up sitting on the grass. Sasuke opened his eyes and looked at her.
". . . God, why didn't you just kill him?" she finally managed to hiss.
"You can't get information out of a dead man," he replied.
"You can't get anything out of a braindead one, either!" Sakura snapped, gesturing at the man.
"It'll wear off," Sasuke said.
When Sakura continued to glare at him, he added, "Why are you giving me that look? He's just an enemy. It doesn't matter if he suffers."
Sakura grit her teeth. "Keep your mouth shut," she bit off. "We haven't put up with so much shit just so you can screw your life up yourself."
Sasuke only continued to give her that faint smirk, so she threw in: "If you really don't want to be here, you should have stayed away back then--dammit, life was hard enough without all the trouble you brought!"
Sasuke looked to the side. "So should I have taken you with me?"
Sakura flinched.
Kakashi was about to break them up, but Sakura didn't give him a chance. "Don't ever bring that up again," she said coldly. "I'm not that stupid anymore."
"Neither am I," Sasuke snapped, jerking around to glare at her. "So stop acting like it. I chose weeks ago."
"We know that," she retorted, "but we aren't Konoha. You still have to prove it."
"How fucking much is she going to demand?" Sasuke growled under his breath. "Tell me, how am I supposed to make her stop seeing Orochimaru when she looks at me!?"
". . . Just endure it," Sakura said, suddenly sounding weary. "She's fifty-three. You're fifteen."
Sasuke looked away again, and a moment later pressed the heel of his hand back to his temple.
When the two of them were silent for a few seconds, Kakashi folded his arms. Before he could find the right words to begin with, however, Naruto crouched down.
"Hey," he said, and Sakura looked over. Sasuke kept his back to him.
"Both of you, shut up," Naruto said. "You know Kakashi-sensei has to report all of this."
He glared at Sasuke's back until the other teenager shrugged a shoulder. Sakura looked down at the second Grassnin.
"That could be a good thing," she said a moment later. ". . . After all, aren't people starting to worry that our team is getting too close? Kakashi-sensei."
Kakashi took a second to make his voice even before answering. "Somewhat."
Naruto gave him a disbelieving look. "How can you have a team be too close?"
Sasuke snorted quietly. Sakura thumped him on the arm before pressing her hand back to the second Grassnin's forehead.
About a minute later, she pulled it away. "The damage here. . . . Did you deliberately focus the genjutsu you used on the other one?" she asked, rubbing her hand roughly against her pants.
Sasuke partially looked over, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "No."
She frowned. "Then, what? Did you use two variations of the same jutsu?"
Sasuke smiled.
"Thank you," he said, standing up. He picked up the almost-jounin and didn't answer her question.
Kakashi picked up the first Grassnin and told the team to move quickly, on the chance that the man had been lying.
~
It only took three minutes for it to be obvious that something was really wrong with Sasuke. He was only jumping to large, wide branches, and he was using more chakra than necessary.
At seven minutes, Sasuke started wobbling with each landing. After the third time, Naruto grabbed the Grassnin off of Sasuke's back when he jumped past the other teenager. Sasuke remained on the branch for an extra second until he adjusted to the change in weight, and said nothing.
Kakashi heard Sakura drawn in a quiet breath at that; and she subtly shifted into a position behind Sasuke. Naruto was already keeping pace beside him.
At a moment when the guys were both in front of them, Sakura made a small motion with her hand, and Kakashi looked over. She gave him a curious look and tapped near her eye. Kakashi nodded.
Sakura rolled her eyes, but then Sasuke skidded slightly on the smooth bark of the tree he'd bounced off of, and she turned her attention back to him.
~
Sasuke almost made it back to Konoha. Kakashi was both impressed and disturbed--he could feel the teenager's chakra fading with each jump.
They were nine minutes away when Sasuke wasn't able to push enough chakra into the soles of his feet to stick to the branch. He didn't help things by landing too close to the edge instead of in the middle.
"Not the arm!" Sakura yelled to Naruto, when he jumped to catch Sasuke. She darted to grab the Grassnin that Naruto had let go of.
Naruto quickly released Sasuke's arm before he dislocated the shoulder and caught him around the waist instead. They wound up dangling awkwardly for a moment, since Naruto had only managed to get one foot stuck to the underside of a branch, until Sasuke kicked him in the chest and forced Naruto to drop him.
Sasuke activated the curse seal before he hit the ground.
"Asshole!" Naruto snapped as he dropped to the ground beside him, and rubbed at the spot on his chest where Sasuke's boot had caught him.
Sakura and Kakashi landed nearby. Sasuke immediately backed away.
Sakura took a step forward. Sasuke took two more steps back.
She held up her hands. "Just let me look at it, Sasuke."
"You can't do anything," he replied. "I can make it back if we don't waste time."
"I can try to--"
Sasuke interrupted her. "I used the mangekyou so extensively on that one Grassnin that it shifted the level of the illusion up. My chakra system is trying to add extra connections to my eyes." He jerked a thumb at his shoulder. "This is going to make it worse. Don't waste time."
"Damn it! Dumbass!" Naruto clenched his hands into fists. "If you pull this crap again--"
"Don't worry," Sasuke replied. "This is as far as I can go on my own."
Kakashi disliked the way he phrased that sentence.
"Then we'll take a break," Sakura said. She dropped the Grassnin on the ground. "Even if he's lying, we'll just fight them off."
Sasuke was starting to shift on his feet, impatient. "If I pass out, I'm not going to be able to wake up for a long time. You're so worried about appearances--how will it look if you carry me into the village unconscious after this mission?"
Sakura shoved her bangs back, and opened her mouth. It looked like she changed her mind at the last second, and instead said, "Then we'll wait. We're off schedule already, it won't matter."
"Are the foxes still out there?" Sasuke asked, turning his head slightly in Naruto's direction without looking away from Sakura.
Naruto used several choice curses on him and said "Yes."
"Then let's go," Kakashi said. He shouldered the Grassnin he was carrying, ignoring the man's reflexive whimper when his broken hands brushed against the front pockets of Kakashi's vest. Sakura let out a breath between her teeth, and picked up the other Grassnin.
"Come on," Naruto said irritatedly to Sasuke. He jumped onto a branch, looking over his shoulder.
Kakashi noticed that Sasuke watched the jump and waited for Naruto to move off the branch before jumping to the exact same spot.
~
When they reached the gates, Kakashi continued to focus a faint amount of chakra in the soles of his feet even as they jumped to the ground and began walking normally. He wasn't surprised when Sasuke, after using a henge to hide his eyes, soon fell in step behind him.
He can't see normally right now, Kakashi noted. Or he can only see chakra.
They made it to the jail without trouble, and in the middle of the transfer paperwork Tsunade herself showed up. She brushed the officer out of the cell and examined the first Grassnin. She started to raise an eyebrow when she saw his hands, but then changed her mind and astutely avoided glancing at Naruto.
"Should we try to brace the fingers?" Sakura asked.
Tsunade examined them. "There's not much point--it sustained too much damage during the trip. How much of the ether did you give it?"
"The remains of the bottle . . . about two milligrams."
Tsunade nodded, and then moved toward the second Grassnin. "How much did you give this one?"
"Ah," Sakura said quietly.
"Nothing," Sasuke replied. "I used a genjutsu on him; he hasn't regained consciousness from that yet."
Tsunade pursed her lips slightly, and pressed a hand to the Grassnin's forehead. A moment later, she raised both eyebrows before looking over at Sasuke.
"Do you have an idea how long it'll take him to wake up?" she asked dryly.
Sasuke surprised everyone in the room by clasping his hands in front of him and bowing from the waist. "I apologize for that," he said. "I used the mangekyou sharingan and miscalculated how it would affect a normal person."
". . . I see," Tsunade said after a moment. She turned back to the Grassnin. "What part of the chakra system does that genjutsu attack? A simple flow disruption isn't changing anything, and it's different from the last time I saw it."
"I'm sorry," Sasuke repeated, without shifting position, "that's a clan secret."
Tsunade gave him an unreadable sideways look.
Kakashi reminded himself that shaking sense into a person had a zero percent success rate, and restrained the urge. He was mildly glad that Naruto was on the other side of the group.
"Very well," Tsunade said a moment later. "After you write up the report and turn it in, you're free to go."
"Tsunade-sensei?" Sakura said quietly. When the woman looked at her, she tugged slightly on the sleeve of Naruto's jacket. "We need to tell you something. Privately."
Tsunade frowned slightly, but jerked her head at Kakashi. "Go clear the hallway."
"Should I get Shizune?" he asked, resolutely not looking at Sasuke, who had had to shift his footing to catch himself when he straightened up.
Sakura nodded, and Tsunade agreed.
She didn't say anything when Sasuke followed Kakashi out of the cell, but that might have been because Naruto had already caught her attention with: "Don't kill me, okay? It talked to me first."
~
Sasuke leaned against the wall as Kakashi spoke to the officers. He could tell that the teenager was using as little of the curse seal as possible, and it wasn't visible because of the high collar of his shirt, but a few of the better officers were giving his shoulder and Kakashi's feet oblique looks.
When they were in the front hallway and no one was close enough to hear, Kakashi said, "I didn't think she was going to let you get away with that."
"I must have passed," Sasuke replied.
"You can't maintain secrecy forever, Sasuke. You don't have the kind of power to keep the Hokage out of your clan's issues anymore."
"I already told Naruto most of it," he said. "When he's Hokage, he can write down."
Kakashi looked over at him, but there was no sign of sarcasm in Sasuke's voice or on his face.
Is that why he was talking so freely. . . ? he wondered. He had assumed Sasuke had been sharing information in order to see how much he would report back.
"You shouldn't wear your loyalties so obviously," Kakashi told him, as he held the door open. "It's dangerous."
Sasuke made a noise in the back of his throat and pushed the other door open. When Kakashi gave him a look, he said, "I can see. It's just blurry."
"Ah," Kakashi replied, and didn't release the chakra in his feet.
He hoped Sasuke was telling the truth, because when he started toward the hospital, the teenager broke aside and turned down another street, walking away from him as quickly as he could manage.
~
Shizune nodded at his message and quickly transferred the care of the patient she'd been working on over to another doctor before departing for the jail. Kakashi went to track down Sasuke.
It was easier than he had expected, because Sasuke had kept close to the walls of buildings and even brushed against them at times.
When he came to the juncture that would have led to the teenager's apartment, Kakashi was startled to find that Sasuke had turned left instead.
He followed Sasuke's scent down the streets until he reached his own apartment, let out a sigh when he found his lock had been kicked in, and entered to find Sasuke collapsed a quarter of a meter into his front room.
The viper was there as well, curled loosely around him, and Sasuke had pressed his forehead and eyes against the cool scales.
Kakashi started to step closer, and the snake flicked out its tongue. He paused.
"He's sick," Kakashi said a moment later.
"No shit," Kyomamushi replied.
The snake opened one eye, watching him. "Have you dealt with obsessed people much, dog-summoner?" it asked. "The thing that they're obsessed with is the smallest piece in everything they do. If even the fox couldn't make him let go, did you really think you had a chance?"
". . . I was talking about his eyes," Kakashi said carefully.
The viper flicked its tongue out again. "So was I."
Kakashi decided it wasn't going to leave Sasuke to attack him without provocation, so he crouched to get closer to its eye level. "I need to get a medicnin to look at him."
"It won't help," the snake replied. "He's doing this to himself--the activation of the mangekyou depends on death. The knowledge that the fox is still alive is what's killing him, not his eyes . . . and he knows it."
"Shut up," Sasuke said suddenly. His voice was muffled by the snake's scales.
Kakashi glanced at him.
"Someone needs to tell them before you destroy yourself, kid. I told you to let the fox die, but you--"
"Shut up." Sasuke shifted slightly, as if he were struggling to push away.
The viper draped itself over his back, pinning him, and Kakashi thought uncomfortably of boa constrictors. The snake curled around enough to look at him again.
"If you really want to help, kill the fox," it said. "There's nothing else you can do."
"Ah," Kakashi said neutrally. He made a small, testing motion towards Sasuke, but the viper just continued to stare at him. Kakashi paused again.
"Is there anything else I should know?" he asked after a moment, and watched Sasuke's hand twitch.
The viper flicked out its tongue again, and something in the motion seemed oddly sarcastic.
"I don't like the way you look at him," it said, "and see someone else."
Kakashi set his hand against the floor, balancing. ". . . I don't do that."
The snake made a small undulating motion that almost looked like shrugging. "I only know what he tells me," it said.
"Stop it," Sasuke hissed, and his voice cracked on the last syllable.
Kyomamushi shifted again, sliding off of Sasuke to the floor. It then nudged his head carefully, until he was lying on the wood rather than on itself. "I'll entrust Sasuke to you for now," it told Kakashi. "Fetch the tree-girl."
It disappeared with that. The hand that Sasuke had been digging into its scales fell to the ground.
When Kakashi moved over, the teenager made an attempt to push him away, but he caught Sasuke's arm and picked him up. Sasuke stopped struggling after that, and it didn't take Kakashi long to lug him to the bedroom and lay him on top of the covers.
Kakashi checked his temperature, checked his pulse, and noticed that there was no blood on either of his hands. There weren't even any fresh cuts.
As he was filling a bowl with cold water and pulling a rag out of the kitchen drawer, he examined the area where Sasuke had been lying. There was no trace or even scent of fresh blood there, either.
Kakashi had had the dogs simply appear around him without being summoned before, too, but it was usually to ask for some kind of treat--though once he had been invited to a wedding, which he'd had to decline due to being in the middle of a mission. But that had only started happening in the last few years, and he had had a contract with the dogs for over a decade. Sasuke couldn't have had his contract for more than three years.
Every once in a while, when he really thought about it, Kakashi was amazed that all three of his students had managed to get embroiled in more trouble than should have been possible in peacetime.
"Was what he said about Naruto true?" Kakashi asked as he laid the damp cloth on Sasuke's forehead.
The teenager didn't answer. Kakashi hadn't expected him to.
~~
Tsunade had taken the news relatively calmly, though it helped that Jiraiya had already returned to Lightning country and she could get a message to him faster than she could have sent someone to do additional research.
"Dammit," she muttered, tossing a dogtail that had fallen forward back over her shoulder. "All right. Write me the best description you can of these things, so I can send it to Jiraiya."
Sakura looked at Naruto. "Did they follow us into Konoha?"
When he shook his head, she looked back over and asked, "Tsunade-sensei? Can I check on Sasuke first? I'm worried about his health."
The woman raised an eyebrow. "He was acting like he was fine."
"Of course," Sakura conceded. "But he really strained his eyes when he used the mangekyou. I just want to look at him quickly--I didn't have time before, because we were trying to get back as fast as possible. And . . . I'm worried about his old wounds," she added a moment later, looking down. "I don't . . . don't think they're going to heal properly if the sutures keep getting ripped out."
Tsunade gave her a long look.
". . . Fine, go," she finally said. "Naruto can write it himself."
"I'm going with her," he said.
Tsunade started to look annoyed.
"I can write it at wherever we find him, and I'll bring it back soon as I'm done." Naruto's tone wasn't asking, or insisting, or flat--he was just stating a fact. "I'm going with her."
Sakura shifted nervously on her feet, not quite looking at him, either.
After a moment of debating wither herself, Tsunade turned away. She focused her attention back on the Grassnin and waved them off. "Fine. Get it to me within an hour."
~
Sakura let out her breath once they had left the station. When Naruto glanced over, he noticed that she had intertwined her fingers and was pressing them against her stomach to hide their trembling.
He looked away again before she could catch him; and a moment later, he folded his hands behind his head.
"Geez," he muttered, loud enough for her to hear. "When I'm Hokage, I'm gonna be like the Third. Only way cooler."
"She's only doing her job," Sakura said quietly. "She has to think of the whole village."
"Nn," Naruto replied.
A moment later, Sakura smiled slightly and let her hands fall. "You better," she said, quietly enough that only he could hear. "We're counting on you."
Naruto nodded.
After a pause, he asked, "Do you think Kakashi-sensei will have dragged that bastard back to his apartment by now?"
"Yeah, he should have found him . . . we can check there first, anyway."
~~
Sasuke had passed out some time between when Kakashi had set the cloth on his forehead and when he had rummaged through all the drawers in the bathroom, trying to find the thermometer that he was relatively certain he had.
Kakashi eventually gave up on the thermometer and brought his bottle of headache pills out of the bathroom. He was trying to decide how much he should give Sasuke, and whether they would even do any good, when Sakura and Naruto showed up.
You know what's a really great invention? Button flies.