(Untitled)

[strategistmedic]

Who: Sakura (strategistmedic) and Naruto (windsawakening)
Where: The Fountain
When: Saturday night, March 21st
Summary: Sakura and Naruto meet up for a reunion of teammates. Unfortunately both of them heard the Evil My Little Ponies riders that went after Aaron.
Rating: G?

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[strategistmedic]

Sakura looked up at the flash of orange in her vision, unable to keep her face from breaking out into a wide smile of relief and happiness as she hopped down from the edge of the fountain. She didn't want to keep the smile off either, though the stupid, girly tears she felt threatening the edges of her vision were unwelcome.

It'd been barely a week since she'd seen him as the Kyuubi in Konoha's ruins, but it was still a huge relief to see him here, now. She didn't like this place, she didn't consider it safe or savory, and she was still worried about Tsunade and everyone she hadn't heard reports of; but with Hinata and now Naruto here, her main worries were just... Erased.

She walked forward briskly, grinning a little idiotically and ignoring the way her vision blurred a bit. The tears of relief and happiness didn't fall, so she ignored them, pulled her arm back and punched Naruto's shoulder--not so hard as she might have normally, but emotion still fueled her hit.

It was practically like giving him a hug, right?

... Maybe she'd spent too much time around men or violent women, but she wasn't about to get all mushy on Naruto just because she was really happy to see him.

"What took you so long?" She asked, the scolding second nature, despite the smile on her lips.

She moved and looked uninjured, any small wounds she'd received when Katsuyu had engulfed and protected her from the attack were too minor to bother her, or already healed.

She stepped back after punching Naruto, looked him up and down, checking him over for the same things he was trying to spot in her--injury. She hadn't been close to the fight but she'd known it was brutal. The Hyuuga's report hadn't been reassuring, and the damage Naruto's body had taken when he'd only had four tails released had been bad enough.

Six tails, eight tails? She had been terrified he wouldn't recover--that he wouldn't return at all, and if he did, that she might not know him.

[windsawakening]

She seemed to move okay. And she definitely looked okay (but Sakura would look good to him covered in sticks and mud and bruises, simply because she was Sakura) and Naruto’s squinted look eased off a little though he was not completely convinced yet. He had felt her chakra back in Konoha when he had arrived. Hers had been the first he could focus on, and the relief then was echoed now.

She was okay. Okay enough to sock him in the shoulder, forcing him back a few stumbled steps-

Were those tears in her eyes?

“OW! Sakura!” The protest came out as a sulky whine, his hand moving up to rub his shoulder and though the complaint was reflexive he was glad for it. No sense in telling her what injuries lingered. She’d only hit him again. And harder! The wounds in his hands had almost healed. The ones in his shoulders, abdomen and thighs were more reluctant but in a few days he guessed they would be gone. Which was fine by him. And he moved well enough. Not exactly as well as he normally might but again, the difference was hard to discern. Any internal injures he had… well, they were not troubling him.

“I had to… help an old lady find her cat?” he chanced with a crooked grin then, still eyeing Sakura up carefully and pretty sure he was mangling one of Kakashi’s old excuses. She was looking him over too. He thought he knew that routine. Oy. I’m fine … and her eyes did look particularly bright. Naruto stepped closer and squinted again, leaning down.

He blinked, just a tad shocked. They were!

“Hey, are you crying!?”

[strategistmedic]

Just as he stepped forward Sakura reached to grab one of his hands, turned it over to examine with a frown, reaching up quickly to wipe at her eyes with a free hand, on reflex. "Don't give lame excuses." She scolded without really meaning it.

"Naruto... You should have told me you were still hurt. We need to take care of these." Sakura narrowed her eyes at him then looked away, down the cobbled streets.

"But first we need to find Aaron. I was talking with him and it just... Cut off. I don't think he'd do that unless something horrible happened." What if it was Itachi that had found Aaron..?

Yes, she ignored his question about crying, indicating by her complete dismissal of it that it was absolutely a ridiculous question anyway. Despite the fact that she'd rubbed her eyes when he asked it. "I'll look at you when we find him, okay?" She turned her head back towards her teammate, smiling, worried.

"... I'm really glad you're here." Which didn't cover half of it, but... Naruto would get it. For all they sometimes seemed to speak a completely different language--one which, at least on his end, tended to come out as dire insults to her ears--they were still teammates. There was still trust there.

And yes, she'd lied to him before, and she would again, to protect him from himself or from pain, but the trust never wavered where it mattered, and she never intended to let him down again, not after coming this far.

[windsawakening]

And he fought the reflexive recoil as she took his hand. Not because he did not trust her, because his trust for Sakura was absolute but because she had warm hands, smaller than his (killers hands) healers hands and he didn’t need it. To be healed. The wounds weren’t that big a deal and he wanted to deal with them himself. He wanted to feel them close without Sakura’s aid. He wanted it to be normal for once and it wasn’t disregard. It was penance.

I’m sorry I failed. He’s dead, an errant thought as Sakura scolded him. He won’t be making any more excuses. I dunno how to tell you. But outwardly Naruto let her look as he shifted on his feet in subdued awkwardness. “Oy, it wasn’t a lame excuse!" The token protest. For once in Kakashi’s defence. He still sounded sullen. It was a very real emotion. “It could’ve happened.”

It could have…

“It’s fine,” he murmured then, gaze locked on her expression, the clear determination in green eyes. Something was up. More than his wounds. Naruto took the opportunity to pull his hand away. “They’re fine! They’re much better than they were.” He waved his hand around a little, wriggled his fingers to illustrate, managed to not-wince, then promptly shoved them back into his pockets and resumed squinting, watching Sakura closely.

You were crying. Well, not crying-crying but, kind of crying. You were.

Aaron… Naruto nodded slowly. Something was off. The static across the transmission he had received. Well. Aaron seemed the polite sort to him. Not the type to just…

“He’ll be fine,” he assured, and though it was automatic as ever he meant it. “We’ll find him.”

We’ll find him. And he’ll be okay. And Sakura was worried but Naruto figured that was because of Aaron but smiled slowly in return because while he wasn’t glad to be here…

“I’m really glad you’re okay, Sakura,” he offered in return. And he understood what she meant. True enough they too often worked on different wavelengths, but where it counted most they were team-mates. Naruto stole a deep breath then and with a head jerk indicted the path he had come. “You got any ideas which direction we should be taking here?”

Do we split up? I don’t really wanna split up in this place. He hoped Sakura had an idea of where Aaron had been last. A pause then.

“Ne, don’t worry so much, Sakura,” he chanced quietly. The shadow of a faint grin, there and gone. “You’ll get wrinkles.”

[strategistmedic]

Sakura sighed, giving Naruto the look of a long suffering teammate. But there was nothing really annoyed in her glance, either. She knew there was something bothering him--it was the way his smile didn't really reach his eyes, the slightly sulky way he responded that wasn't quite the bratty tone he used when he was whining without reason.

They had a lot to talk about, and she wasn't sure she wanted to talk about it. Ever since she'd arrived she'd been keeping busy and trying not to think of where she wasn't--because she was needed back home in Konoha and so was he, but she couldn't get them there. And if she thought about it too much she'd go insane. So she focused on everything she could do here, in World's End, a strange place that scared her but at least had enough going on to keep her completely occupied.

"You're not fine. I said I'd heal them." And she would, thank you. It would be the least she could do--it seemed more and more it was all she could do sometimes. Wait for the battle to finish and heal the wounds after.

It was frustrating, when she'd vowed that Naruto and Sasuke would be seeing her back in front of them, that every time she looked they were still so far ahead of her, and getting further. To the point that fighting beside Naruto might only cause him problems, in a real battle.

Like against Pein.

She'd have to train harder, if she wanted to be useful as more than the person worried on the sidelines, waiting with the bandages and hoping the wounds this time weren't too severe.

"Yeah we will." She shook the thoughts off, smiled at Naruto, determined. "And he will be. He'll probably think we're idiot worry-worts." She hoped. But didn't really believe it.

World's End was dangerous, and Aaron wasn't a fighter.

"I'd rather stick together. We should check his eatery first. In case he's not in trouble, and then we can scold him." She grinned. "And maybe he can figure out how to make you ramen or something."

She pointed away from the square, to the street that held Aaron's Eatery, glancing over her shoulder, lips tugging down a bit at his words.

She swatted his arm, even if she was too distracted to be angry. "I'm too young for wrinkles."