Vurt Ninjas 12
In which Sakura steals Sasuke's thunder, and Naruto wishes his lovers weren't so high maintanence. And insane.
Two days after Sasuke brought over the information that Itachi had given him, Sakura quit her job without putting in a notice and then went to visit Naruto at work.
"Heeeey!" he said, when he heard her call down from the hall. "In here!"
Naruto was closing the dreamsnake's cage when she came in; when she saw him start to lock it, she said quickly, "Did you go on lunch break yet?"
"Nope!" he said cheerfully, letting the keys dangle in his hand as he turned to face her again. "I was waiting to finish this batch, but I'm starving--when do you have to be back at the clinic?"
"About twenty minutes," she replied. "I said I'd probably be a little late because of the buses."
"Awesome," he replied, grinning. "Lemme go say I'm leaving and I'll meet you outside?"
"Sure," Sakura said with a smile.
Naruto knocked once, sharply, on the door to the filming studio. "I'm going on lunch break. I'll be back in half an hour."
Jiraiya started to tersely call, "Fine," but he was cut off by Sakura's scream.
When Naruto ran back into the cutting room, he found Sakura crouched on the floor, curled in around her arm, and the dreamsnake cage tipped over with the dreamsnake slithering away across the table.
"Sakura!"
"Shizune's clinic," Sakura said through her clenched jaw. "Go call. . . ."
"What were you doing?! Sakura-chan, what the fuck!"
"Stop shaking her," Jiraiya said from behind him, as he was crossing to the main room where the phone was. "You'll spread the venom."
"Fuck!" Naruto half-screamed, and then picked her up. Sakura choked down a pained noise when her arm was jostled, and had to look away from the terrified expression on his face.
Naruto had already driven Sakura off towards Shizune's clinic by the time Jiraiya got off the phone with the woman.
Then, because he'd picked up the suffix Naruto had used, he went on to dial the younger man's apartment.
He had to call three times before someone picked up the phone; Jiraiya didn't wait for them to speak before saying, "This is Naruto's boss. Are you Sasuke?"
"If he's skipped again I don't know where the--"
"No," Jiraiya interrupted, "he's just taken Ms. Sakura to the hospital for a dreamsnake bite."
Silence.
Jiraiya raised an eyebrow after Sasuke said nothing for three seconds, and then went on: "It's at the clinic of a woman called Shizune, at 135--"
The phone clicked at that, and Jiraiya realized Sasuke had hung up. He gave Naruto minus fifty points for his taste in men, and hit the tab to reset it. And then he called Tsunade.
Tsunade made Sasuke sound polite, but past responsibilities made her agree to meet him at Shizune's anyway.
When Jiraiya arrived at the clinic, it was to find Naruto pacing the waiting room viciously. Jiraiya slammed a hand into the side of his neck, and then dumped him in the chair nearest the door to the rest of the clinic before sitting down across from him.
"Um . . ." said the man behind the counter, glancing between the two of them, "you need to sign in before we can help you, sir. . . ."
"I'm just waiting for someone," Jiraiya replied.
Naruto must have been severely creeping the nurse out before Jiraiya arrived, because he only glanced at them one last time before retreating to an area of the office that wasn't visible from where Jiraiya was sitting.
Tsunade arrived at the clinic much sooner than Jiraiya expected--Naruto was still unconscious. He would have asked where she'd slept last night, if they'd still had that kind of familiarity.
''Oi," she said, striding past him and up to the counter, "go tell Shizune I want to talk to her."
"She's with a pati--"
"Shizune!" Tsunade yelled past the screen, making the nurse frown and pull back.
"Let her in, Migaki!" Shizune called a moment later.
The man looked like he was having a hell of a bad day, but did so; Jiraiya followed behind.
Shizune looked worse than Migaki, but she smiled briefly when she saw Tsunade, letting the hand holding a roll of bandages drop to her side. "Ms. Tsunade."
"What happened?" she replied, looking down at Sakura, who was lying on the cot with her eyes closed.
"A . . . former employee of mine, she came in with a dreamsnake bite. Her boyfriend brought her in . . . what happened?" Shizune asked, looking over at Jiraiya.
"There was an accident with dreamsnakes in our cutting room," he replied. "I keep telling Naruto to lock the cages any time he leaves, but."
"Ah," Shizune replied, and Jiraiya was relatively sure she didn't believe him. "Okay. She's going to be fine, if you want to tell him."
"I'll do that when he wakes up."
Shizune gave him an odd look, and then returned her attention to Tsunade when the woman picked up Sakura's arm, examining the wound underneath the snakeweed.
"This angle . . ." Tsunade murmured, and looked at Shizune. The younger woman blinked and frowned faintly in confusion, so Tsunade turned to Jiraiya. "Did she deliberately get herself bitten?"
"It seems like that," he replied. "That game's pretty potent."
Tsunade dropped Sakura's arm, which Shizune caught before the snakeweed could slide off, and pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead.
Tsunade swore under her breath for a few moments before exhaling tiredly. "Shizune, this report--"
"There won't be a report," Shizune replied quietly, wrapping Sakura's arm. "Don't worry about anything, Ms. Tsunade."
"What?" Tsunade replied. "You'll get fined if you don't report all dreamsnake attacks."
"I don't want to be associated with Sakura," Shizune replied. "She's gotten . . . herself involved in some things I don't need."
"What do you mean?" Jiraiya replied, ignoring the look Tsunade threw him. Shizune had been too young to know about the original Konoha game.
"Just that someone came by wanting information on her," Shizune replied, after half a minute's hesitation. "I know Naruto's mostly legit, but I'm not sure about that other man."
"Somebody came by?" Jiraiya repeated. "What did they look like?"
"Um . . ." Shizune held down the edge of the bandage, reaching for the tape. "In his twenties, with glasses . . . he had dyed hair, silver."
"Oh," Jiraiya replied, "you don't have to worry. That was Kabuto. He works for me too."
"Oh," Shizune said, setting Sakura's arm on the cot and looking at him. "Really?"
"Yeah," he replied. "It was probably just something involving Naruto."
"You son of a bitch," Sakura said quietly.
Jiraiya gave her a look. Shizune admonished her under her breath, but after another moment Sakura opened her eyes and shoved herself into a sitting position with her good arm, before twisting around to slide off the cot. Shizune grabbed her shoulders and stopped her when her feet were hanging over the edge.
"Stop it," she said crisply, "you know better than to move. You need to rest until the antidote takes hold."
"Naruto and Sasuke were walking around now," Sakura replied, trying to jerk free. "I'm fine."
"Male and female bodies are different," Shizune said in annoyance. "That's basic anatomy."
"Let me fucking go!"
"Sakura!"
"Naruto!" she screamed suddenly, making Shizune start and let go reflexively. "Naruto!!"
Tsunade was pressing her hands over her ears with a hungover person's grimace, so Jiraiya stepped closer, holding his hands up in a harmless gesture. "Will you calm down?" he said, annoyed. "I had to knock Naruto out because he was scaring the other people in the waiting room. You might as well lie down until he's awake."
"You did that?" someone said from behind them, in the doorway. "Get the fuck away from Sakura."
Upon turning around, Jiraiya and Tsunade saw a shadowgirl with the long hood of her jacket pulled over half her face. This was not weird until Shizune gasped and backed away.
"Come on," the woman said, gesturing to Sakura.
"God, Sasuke, thank you," she whispered, sliding off the cot and stumbling over. He grimaced when she said his name, but took a step forward and put out a hand to steady her.
". . . You're Sasuke," Jiraiya said, staring.
He couldn't see the man's eyes under the hood, but Jiraiya was pretty sure he was glaring at him.
"Well," Jiraiya continued, eyeing the shadows around Sasuke's hands. "This explains Orochimaru's interest."
"Go to hell, pervert sannin," Sasuke replied lowly, bracing an arm around Sakura's shoulders and shifting her towards the door. "And tell Yashagoro to do the same."
That little name-dropping allowed them to leave the room in silence.
In the waiting room, Sasuke kicked Naruto harshly in the leg, but the other man was still out. Sakura insisted that she could walk on her own if she could just keep a hand on his arm to stay steady, so Sasuke slung Naruto's arm over his shoulders and half-dragged him out.
"Where'd you guys park?" he asked, once they were outside.
"Behind the building. . . ."
Sasuke turned abruptly in that direction, and then stopped when Sakura nearly tripped at the sharp movement and waited for her to adjust.
They didn't seem to be followed, so once he reached the car, he had Sakura sit on the ground next to Naruto while he rummaged through the other man's pockets for the keys. After he found them, he unlocked the back door and then pinched a nerve in her neck.
Sasuke managed to strap both Naruto and Sakura into seatbelts, though he swore a lot in the process, and then took off from the parking lot and down the first street he saw. He drove until he was completely lost, and only then shoved his hood back down from his face.
"Nng," Naruto muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. Then he started and opened his eyes. "Sakura-chan!"
"She's right there," Sasuke replied, without looking up from the map.
Naruto lunged sideways, then wrestled off his seatbelt and hugged her tightly. "What the fuck--why did they let her out if she's unconscious?!"
"I did that," Sasuke replied.
"What?!"
"She insisted on walking right after getting the snakeweed," he said. "At least now she's not moving around."
"Why didn't you make her stay there!?"
"Because she was angry, scared, and screaming for you," he answered. "I don't know what Jiraiya said to her, but we weren't staying."
". . . Fuck," Naruto said quietly. "What the fuck is going on?"
"You and I have Vurt in our blood," Sasuke replied. "She felt left behind."
Naruto was silent for a long while, and finally asked, "Did you know this before?"
"No," the other man replied, hunching slightly as he continued to stare at the map. "I was too preoccupied to pay attention."
Naruto looked at him for another minute, and then slumped back in the seat.
"How'd you get here?" he asked.
"Put your seatbelt on," Sasuke replied, rearranging the map. "Jiraiya called and said you'd taken her to Shizune's."
He handed the map back, with one finger indicating the street they were on; Naruto took it a moment later.
". . . Thanks," he muttered.
After Sasuke had buckled on his seatbelt, Naruto slumped further against Sakura, glaring at the map. "I bet you were cool, weren't you?"
"What?"
"When you showed up and saved the fucking day while I was unconscious. I bet you were cool."
Sasuke was silent for several seconds, and then started the car.
"I was," he replied dryly. "But I didn't break that guy's arm like I wanted to this time."
Naruto kicked the back of his seat. "Turn left up ahead," he said, when Sasuke quit swearing at him.
Two days after Sasuke brought over the information that Itachi had given him, Sakura quit her job without putting in a notice and then went to visit Naruto at work.
"Heeeey!" he said, when he heard her call down from the hall. "In here!"
Naruto was closing the dreamsnake's cage when she came in; when she saw him start to lock it, she said quickly, "Did you go on lunch break yet?"
"Nope!" he said cheerfully, letting the keys dangle in his hand as he turned to face her again. "I was waiting to finish this batch, but I'm starving--when do you have to be back at the clinic?"
"About twenty minutes," she replied. "I said I'd probably be a little late because of the buses."
"Awesome," he replied, grinning. "Lemme go say I'm leaving and I'll meet you outside?"
"Sure," Sakura said with a smile.
Naruto knocked once, sharply, on the door to the filming studio. "I'm going on lunch break. I'll be back in half an hour."
Jiraiya started to tersely call, "Fine," but he was cut off by Sakura's scream.
When Naruto ran back into the cutting room, he found Sakura crouched on the floor, curled in around her arm, and the dreamsnake cage tipped over with the dreamsnake slithering away across the table.
"Sakura!"
"Shizune's clinic," Sakura said through her clenched jaw. "Go call. . . ."
"What were you doing?! Sakura-chan, what the fuck!"
"Stop shaking her," Jiraiya said from behind him, as he was crossing to the main room where the phone was. "You'll spread the venom."
"Fuck!" Naruto half-screamed, and then picked her up. Sakura choked down a pained noise when her arm was jostled, and had to look away from the terrified expression on his face.
Naruto had already driven Sakura off towards Shizune's clinic by the time Jiraiya got off the phone with the woman.
Then, because he'd picked up the suffix Naruto had used, he went on to dial the younger man's apartment.
He had to call three times before someone picked up the phone; Jiraiya didn't wait for them to speak before saying, "This is Naruto's boss. Are you Sasuke?"
"If he's skipped again I don't know where the--"
"No," Jiraiya interrupted, "he's just taken Ms. Sakura to the hospital for a dreamsnake bite."
Silence.
Jiraiya raised an eyebrow after Sasuke said nothing for three seconds, and then went on: "It's at the clinic of a woman called Shizune, at 135--"
The phone clicked at that, and Jiraiya realized Sasuke had hung up. He gave Naruto minus fifty points for his taste in men, and hit the tab to reset it. And then he called Tsunade.
Tsunade made Sasuke sound polite, but past responsibilities made her agree to meet him at Shizune's anyway.
When Jiraiya arrived at the clinic, it was to find Naruto pacing the waiting room viciously. Jiraiya slammed a hand into the side of his neck, and then dumped him in the chair nearest the door to the rest of the clinic before sitting down across from him.
"Um . . ." said the man behind the counter, glancing between the two of them, "you need to sign in before we can help you, sir. . . ."
"I'm just waiting for someone," Jiraiya replied.
Naruto must have been severely creeping the nurse out before Jiraiya arrived, because he only glanced at them one last time before retreating to an area of the office that wasn't visible from where Jiraiya was sitting.
Tsunade arrived at the clinic much sooner than Jiraiya expected--Naruto was still unconscious. He would have asked where she'd slept last night, if they'd still had that kind of familiarity.
''Oi," she said, striding past him and up to the counter, "go tell Shizune I want to talk to her."
"She's with a pati--"
"Shizune!" Tsunade yelled past the screen, making the nurse frown and pull back.
"Let her in, Migaki!" Shizune called a moment later.
The man looked like he was having a hell of a bad day, but did so; Jiraiya followed behind.
Shizune looked worse than Migaki, but she smiled briefly when she saw Tsunade, letting the hand holding a roll of bandages drop to her side. "Ms. Tsunade."
"What happened?" she replied, looking down at Sakura, who was lying on the cot with her eyes closed.
"A . . . former employee of mine, she came in with a dreamsnake bite. Her boyfriend brought her in . . . what happened?" Shizune asked, looking over at Jiraiya.
"There was an accident with dreamsnakes in our cutting room," he replied. "I keep telling Naruto to lock the cages any time he leaves, but."
"Ah," Shizune replied, and Jiraiya was relatively sure she didn't believe him. "Okay. She's going to be fine, if you want to tell him."
"I'll do that when he wakes up."
Shizune gave him an odd look, and then returned her attention to Tsunade when the woman picked up Sakura's arm, examining the wound underneath the snakeweed.
"This angle . . ." Tsunade murmured, and looked at Shizune. The younger woman blinked and frowned faintly in confusion, so Tsunade turned to Jiraiya. "Did she deliberately get herself bitten?"
"It seems like that," he replied. "That game's pretty potent."
Tsunade dropped Sakura's arm, which Shizune caught before the snakeweed could slide off, and pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead.
Tsunade swore under her breath for a few moments before exhaling tiredly. "Shizune, this report--"
"There won't be a report," Shizune replied quietly, wrapping Sakura's arm. "Don't worry about anything, Ms. Tsunade."
"What?" Tsunade replied. "You'll get fined if you don't report all dreamsnake attacks."
"I don't want to be associated with Sakura," Shizune replied. "She's gotten . . . herself involved in some things I don't need."
"What do you mean?" Jiraiya replied, ignoring the look Tsunade threw him. Shizune had been too young to know about the original Konoha game.
"Just that someone came by wanting information on her," Shizune replied, after half a minute's hesitation. "I know Naruto's mostly legit, but I'm not sure about that other man."
"Somebody came by?" Jiraiya repeated. "What did they look like?"
"Um . . ." Shizune held down the edge of the bandage, reaching for the tape. "In his twenties, with glasses . . . he had dyed hair, silver."
"Oh," Jiraiya replied, "you don't have to worry. That was Kabuto. He works for me too."
"Oh," Shizune said, setting Sakura's arm on the cot and looking at him. "Really?"
"Yeah," he replied. "It was probably just something involving Naruto."
"You son of a bitch," Sakura said quietly.
Jiraiya gave her a look. Shizune admonished her under her breath, but after another moment Sakura opened her eyes and shoved herself into a sitting position with her good arm, before twisting around to slide off the cot. Shizune grabbed her shoulders and stopped her when her feet were hanging over the edge.
"Stop it," she said crisply, "you know better than to move. You need to rest until the antidote takes hold."
"Naruto and Sasuke were walking around now," Sakura replied, trying to jerk free. "I'm fine."
"Male and female bodies are different," Shizune said in annoyance. "That's basic anatomy."
"Let me fucking go!"
"Sakura!"
"Naruto!" she screamed suddenly, making Shizune start and let go reflexively. "Naruto!!"
Tsunade was pressing her hands over her ears with a hungover person's grimace, so Jiraiya stepped closer, holding his hands up in a harmless gesture. "Will you calm down?" he said, annoyed. "I had to knock Naruto out because he was scaring the other people in the waiting room. You might as well lie down until he's awake."
"You did that?" someone said from behind them, in the doorway. "Get the fuck away from Sakura."
Upon turning around, Jiraiya and Tsunade saw a shadowgirl with the long hood of her jacket pulled over half her face. This was not weird until Shizune gasped and backed away.
"Come on," the woman said, gesturing to Sakura.
"God, Sasuke, thank you," she whispered, sliding off the cot and stumbling over. He grimaced when she said his name, but took a step forward and put out a hand to steady her.
". . . You're Sasuke," Jiraiya said, staring.
He couldn't see the man's eyes under the hood, but Jiraiya was pretty sure he was glaring at him.
"Well," Jiraiya continued, eyeing the shadows around Sasuke's hands. "This explains Orochimaru's interest."
"Go to hell, pervert sannin," Sasuke replied lowly, bracing an arm around Sakura's shoulders and shifting her towards the door. "And tell Yashagoro to do the same."
That little name-dropping allowed them to leave the room in silence.
In the waiting room, Sasuke kicked Naruto harshly in the leg, but the other man was still out. Sakura insisted that she could walk on her own if she could just keep a hand on his arm to stay steady, so Sasuke slung Naruto's arm over his shoulders and half-dragged him out.
"Where'd you guys park?" he asked, once they were outside.
"Behind the building. . . ."
Sasuke turned abruptly in that direction, and then stopped when Sakura nearly tripped at the sharp movement and waited for her to adjust.
They didn't seem to be followed, so once he reached the car, he had Sakura sit on the ground next to Naruto while he rummaged through the other man's pockets for the keys. After he found them, he unlocked the back door and then pinched a nerve in her neck.
Sasuke managed to strap both Naruto and Sakura into seatbelts, though he swore a lot in the process, and then took off from the parking lot and down the first street he saw. He drove until he was completely lost, and only then shoved his hood back down from his face.
"Nng," Naruto muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. Then he started and opened his eyes. "Sakura-chan!"
"She's right there," Sasuke replied, without looking up from the map.
Naruto lunged sideways, then wrestled off his seatbelt and hugged her tightly. "What the fuck--why did they let her out if she's unconscious?!"
"I did that," Sasuke replied.
"What?!"
"She insisted on walking right after getting the snakeweed," he said. "At least now she's not moving around."
"Why didn't you make her stay there!?"
"Because she was angry, scared, and screaming for you," he answered. "I don't know what Jiraiya said to her, but we weren't staying."
". . . Fuck," Naruto said quietly. "What the fuck is going on?"
"You and I have Vurt in our blood," Sasuke replied. "She felt left behind."
Naruto was silent for a long while, and finally asked, "Did you know this before?"
"No," the other man replied, hunching slightly as he continued to stare at the map. "I was too preoccupied to pay attention."
Naruto looked at him for another minute, and then slumped back in the seat.
"How'd you get here?" he asked.
"Put your seatbelt on," Sasuke replied, rearranging the map. "Jiraiya called and said you'd taken her to Shizune's."
He handed the map back, with one finger indicating the street they were on; Naruto took it a moment later.
". . . Thanks," he muttered.
After Sasuke had buckled on his seatbelt, Naruto slumped further against Sakura, glaring at the map. "I bet you were cool, weren't you?"
"What?"
"When you showed up and saved the fucking day while I was unconscious. I bet you were cool."
Sasuke was silent for several seconds, and then started the car.
"I was," he replied dryly. "But I didn't break that guy's arm like I wanted to this time."
Naruto kicked the back of his seat. "Turn left up ahead," he said, when Sasuke quit swearing at him.