Under The Bridge 7
Why, yes, I decided to post another chapter. I almost didn't. First of all, because no one reads this fic. Second of all, because I almost didn't continue it. But I ended up writing, so more Suefic for you! AHAHAHAHAAGAgak*choke-cough-ded* X__x;;
NARUTO FIC
Title: Under the Bridge -- Chapter Seven UTB chapters in Five minutes or less
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG - 13
Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine. All resemblance to peoples real and fictional on the part of the OCs is completely accidental.
Warnings: Sue!Fic, AU
Summary: Suzubashi Kameko, genin of Otogakure, takes a teammate up on a dare. Little does she know that this dare will change her life completely.
Chapters: One Two Three Four Five Six
Chapter Seven : Jutsu does what?
It turned out that she must have been able to sleep, because she was roused the next morning by Sakura and rushed out the door into a side room for a quick examination.
"Still a little tender," Sakura noticed, pushing lightly on her stomach as the healing chakra filtered through her internal organs. "That's to be expected after letting it go as long as you did. A weeks rest when all this stuff is over and you should be good as new."
"Ah, thank you," Kameko said softy. She was still unsure how to react to Sakura. "And, I'm ... um, I'm sorry for causing so much trouble both when we met and now."
Sakura looked up, and stared at her for a second with green eyes -- eyes with hidden depths to them. "Eh, don't worry about it, really. Sasuke's a little touchy these days, and you probably shouldn't have been ordered along on this mission."
That's no excuse, she thought to herself. Even a low-leveled idiot like me should have been able to recognize the early signs of internal damage. "Thank you," she said instead.
"Come on, lets get to breakfast," Sakura said, grabbing her wrist and leading her to another room. The others minus Sasuke were there. Kakashi had a plate of food before him, but he seemed more interested in watching Naruto, who seemed to be well on his way to his third helping. "Idiot! Don't eat so fast!" Sakura scolded. "You'll get sick!"
He muttered something back with what may have been a grin, but the food was hindering him. About the only word that Kameko could make out was 'Sakura-chan'.
"Don't 'Sakura-chan' me, Naruto!" she snapped back. "You slow down or I won't be cooking you any more lunches!"
This threat made him look properly horrified, and he choked down his mouthful. "Sorry, Sakura-chan," he said, a mixture being groveling and tongue-in-cheek acting making his words strange. "I'll slow down."
"You'd better! Now, Kameko, eat good, okay? You lost a lot of blood."
"Of course, Sakura," she answered, taking a seat on the other side of Naruto. She picked out a mottled mix of eggs, fish, rice and milk. It was oddly rich fare for nin on a mission, she noted with a frown on her face. Or was Otogakure really that much different than Konoha? Could Konohagakure really afford to get their ninja this sort of fare while on a mission?
Naruto chuckled when he noticed her doubtful look. "Kakashi knows how to beg up all kinds of stuff!" he said, and then frowned in what appeared to be a thoughtful manner. "It also seemed to require making you look like a guy who was pretty badly beat up and Sasuke ask for the food, but it still worked!"
Kameko stared at him for a moment as this sunk in, then turned to arch an eyebrow at the man across the table. His visible eye curved in what could only be a smile and he lifted a hand.
"Yo," he said.
"Morning," she replied, shaking her head and snapping her chopsticks apart. "Either way, thanks for getting the food."
"He didn't do it for you," a cold voice said as the door slid open. Sasuke stepped inside, an expression of irritation on his face.
"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura said with a mixture of surprise and reproach.
"Hey, jerk-face --" Naruto started.
"I didn't say he did," Kameko cut in, perhaps louder than she needed to, her voice hard. She stared back at him, a stubborn look crossing it. "But I am still profiting, and therefore still thankful."
"Kameko-chan," Sakura said vainly, somewhat surprised and largely distressed.
"I find it pathetic that you were disabled so soon in the mission," he growled back, glaring. Apparently, he'd expected the unsure nervousness she'd displayed previously where he was concerned. Normally, he would have gotten it if he hadn't said what he said in response to her thanks. She hated that. Don't tell me I'm not important, I know that well enough myself.
"I'd like to see you take on that jutsu," she snorted. "See what you do when you can't channel chakra and you're blind."
"I can do more than you did!" he snapped. "Even without chakra, you should have been able to do something."
"S-Sasuke, Kameko!" Sakura exclaimed, waving her hands at them as if to get them to calm down.
"Children, children," Kakashi cut in. Kameko's mouth shut with a snap, reacting to the leader's voice like a knee-jerk reaction, something that had been drilled into her head. When the teamleader speaks, you don't. When the teamleader says in whichever way that you are doing foolish things, you stop immediately. Kakashi's voice clearly said that they were being idiots at the moment. "Sasuke, why don't you sit down and have some breakfast?" he asked, smiling in a far too pleasant way at the dark-haired boy. "Kameko, why don't you finish your food? You'll need your strength for the travel today."
What if we get attacked again? What if that jutsu is used again? Paranoia sent her heart fluttering against her ribs. I don't want to die. "Yes, Kakashi-san," she said instead, and stuffed an entire egg in her mouth, uncaring about how gross or impolite it was.
"Hey, Kameko-chan," Naruto hissed at her a moment later. When she looked up, he screwed his face up in an odd way. "What was that thing with Sasuke?" he whispered.
It was a lost cause. There was no other talking going on at the table, and being nin, they could all hear what he was saying. Kameko smiled wanly. "He reminded me of someone, is all." He reminded me of Kanaye, who was always intent on getting me in trouble -- on getting me dead.
"Eeh? Really? You had to put up with a bastard, too?" Naruto asked with a little too much innocence. There was a hidden humor to his voice. A true smile appeared on Kameko's face in response.
"You could say that," she said. You couldn't say that the rest of them were much better.
"Hey, Sasuke-kun is not a bastard, Naruto! And don't say anything, I know what you meant!" Sakura scolded from the other side of Naruto.
"But, Sakura-chan," he whined, turning back to her. They quickly dissolved into a bickering mess, and Kameko sighed and returned to her meal, ignoring the waves of hostility that Sasuke was sending their side of the table.
Once they got a satisfactory meal in, they joined back up with Matsushita-san and his entourage. It had been decided previously that they would now remain in plain sight since a henge did nothing against the scatter-shot jutsu they'd faced yesterday, and instead simply made sure to be a good distance away from each other. Kameko had been placed even with Naruto, with Sasuke in front and Kakashi and Sakura in back. She felt oddly unhappy with that.
The guards were silent and cold, so the only noise being made was by Matsushita-san and his family. Kameko found herself wondering if the others were as ill at ease as she was. A guard tried to kill me.
This time they'd barely made it seven miles down the road when the smoke-bomb exploded. A cold chill swept over Kameko, and she was running before she could even think of how to respond to the danger.
A muffled shout, a brilliant flash, and she tumbled. The world turned upside down, but it wasn’t nearly as bad this time.
She came up flinging kunai, frightened and enraged. They’d tried it again, they tried to kill her. She saw several of her kunai strike a form still coming out of a jutsu stance, and it jerked, obviously registering the injuries but not crying out. A guard swung at her from the left, sword whistling, and she had to roll the opposite direction to avoid it, but wasn’t quick enough, a flash of pain on her back as the edge sliced through her clothing and scored. It was shallow, though, she could tell from the pain. Little more than a paper cut, or a glancing blow by a shurkin. She would know.
She was damned lucky that she was most familiar with fighting a standing opponent while she was on the ground, pivoting her body and sweeping the guards feet out from under him. She almost followed through with a kunai, but didn’t. They wouldn’t accept her killing a guard she was supposed to protect, not even if he attacked her first.
Several orange clad bodies flashed by, and she felt a breath of relief. That was one nin who had avoided the blast. She had avoided most of it when it had been directly aimed at her, so her only concern was Sasuke. He’d probably been able to avoid it, but it was best not to assume that he had until she saw him use his chakra.
Climbing to her feet, however, it became clear that the fight was over. Kakashi was making his way over to the spot spattered with blood -- where she’d been standing. He studied it for a moment, then looked about. Kameko waited for his next orders.
“Hmm, I think you should continue,” he finally said. “I have a friend to follow.” He flashed a quick glance at Kameko and dipped his head just enough for her to notice. She’d done good by wounding him. An uncomfortable tightening occurred in her chest, and she felt energized. I did something right, she marveled. Not the genius, not the others, me. I did something right.
That was a novelty in and of itself.
--
They made it safely to the next village and took room in the inn. This time, Naruto was to watch over Matsushita and his family, which left Kameko with Sakura and Sasuke. Sakura insisted on ushering Kameko off to check on her internal organs again, and then hounded Sasuke into taking his shirt off.
“You weren’t using the Sharingan,” she said, fixing him with an intimidating scowl. “Now, take it off!”
Grumbling, he did, but unlike Kameko, there was no bruising around his ribs. Both girls frowned at him in confusion for a moment before something caught Kameko’s attention.
“Hey,” she said, and searched around for a bit. When she found a rag, she handed it to Sakura. Sakura blinked at it for a moment, then her eyes narrowed. Sasuke had just begun understanding that he’d been caught when they both leapt on him.
“Get off me!” he snarled, twisting violently. Kameko hissed as a fist caught her in the chest, but he missed her breast, and therefore, while it was painful it wasn’t agonizing, and she managed to seal his hand to the floor with her own hands and chakra. She caught a leg with her own, repeating the process and then got his shoulder. He seemed adverse to hurting Sakura, and was thus pinned securely to the floor.
“You jerk!” Sakura muttered, snagging his chin in hand and scrubbing at his face with the rag. a pale residue came off onto it, and darkened skin showed through.
He hadn’t been bruised around his stomach, but he’d bruised badly around his eyes. It was worse than if he’d gotten a black eye, all discolored and yet not swollen. Sakura fused and fumed over him while he lay there, nearly helpless without his chakra, grumbling and snapping unhappily.
She finally decided that he’d only gotten a glancing blow, as nothing more than the skin had been damaged, the bleeding only under the skin and not in his brain. “I don’t like the looks of this,” she said to Kameko. “That jutsu doesn’t just disrupt the chakra flow -- it attacks the greatest source of chakra in the body.”
Kameko frowned. Something about that wasn’t right. Ignoring that she didn’t get any chakra at all from the Sune-Kosuri, something else was strange. It took her a second to catch it. “But Kakashi was nearest of all of us to the first attack, and he didn’t seem hurt like this. Doesn’t he have some source that would be equally damaged?”
“Sharingan Kakashi?” Sakura asked, arching her eyebrow. “I didn’t think to look, but his Sharingan eye should have been damaged. We’ll have to look when he gets back.”
“Feh,” Sasuke said under them, as if he couldn’t believe that they’d be able to make Kakashi do anything. On reflection, Kameko agreed.
“Can you use your chakra now, Kameko-chan?” Sakura asked. “Aside from sealing Sasuke-kun to the floor.”
“I could check,” she said as they released the boy. He stood quickly and moved away to sulk by the window. Kameko pondered through her known jutsu for a moment before deciding on one of Tanaka’s favorites that didn’t require a lot of chakra, just in case it would be another case of yesterday. She pulled the single senbon she’d managed to get from her thigh-case, and tossed it up just enough to suspend it while she formed the seals as quickly as she could. She wasn’t quiet fast enough, and the sudden multitude of needles fell to the floor with a sound like bells. “Eh, it’s working fine from what I can tell. Still a little sluggish, but it works,” she said as she gathered them up in her hand.
“Where did you learn that jutsu?” Sakura asked, face unreadable. Kameko went blank, noting that both she and Sasuke were staring at her with strange expressions.
“I, ah ...” she stuttered, panicking. She hadn’t thought about it, but she was supposed to be pretending to be a new genin, not nin who’d long been a genin at a different village. “I ah, saw it being done, and I, ah,” she said weakly. She knew that it could take a year to figure out how to make the chakra flow correctly through the seals even if you had the pattern memorized. That was how long it took her to steal Tanaka’s jutsu.
Sakura and Sasuke were smart. They wouldn’t be fooled. She had to think of a convincing lie now. Before she could think, she smiled, tilting her head to the side. “I just sorta copied it. That’s why I was sent here, of course. My family understood that I would continue to do so, and they didn’t want me in a war, so they sent me to Kohona.” She paused. “Its a little embarrassing, don’t you think, to have been sent here so old not because I had talent, but because I was too stubborn to accept anything else?”
They stared at her a moment longer, and then Sakura smiled back. “Yeah, a little. But I’m sure you’ll make it!”
Sasuke just grunted and turned back to the window.
After a while, Sakura left to get them some food, which left Sasuke and Kameko alone with an uncomfortable silence. She decided to take the time to pick a bed out, and ended up choosing the one in the corner, away from the door and the window. It wasn’t her favorite place to be, but it gave Sasuke the best chance to get as far away from her as he wanted to. She didn’t want to get into another argument, after all.
She snapped awake, confused and blurry when the door opened. Sakura was coming in with food, which left Kameko bemused for a moment until she realized she must have fallen asleep while waiting for her to come back.
“Any thing happen?” she asked, not yet awake enough to realize that if anything had happened that Sakura would have given some sign.
“Except for stupid men?” Sakura asked, rolling her eyes. “No.”
“Oh.”
Eventually, Sasuke and Kameko joined Sakura to eat, though Sasuke was sulking and had his face turned to hide the bruising. He was likely nursing a bruised ego, too. Kameko wasn’t concerned -- she knew the only reason they had managed to subdue him was his lack of chakra and the fact that one of them was Sakura.
They were finishing their meal when the door opened and Kakashi strolled in. “Ate without your sensei?” he asked. “How cruel.”
“We didn’t know when you’d be back, Kakashi,” Sakura said, undaunted. “It’d do us little good not to eat if case you didn’t come back.”
“Ah, correct!” Kakashi said with odd brightness. He ambled over and sat at the empty seat, and nodded at Sakura when she set a box of food in front of him. “So, I found our friend,” he said, setting his chin into his palm.
“Oh? What did you do to him?”
“Had a talk. What else? It seems he isn’t the originator of the jutsu he used on us.” Kakashi idly poked at his food with his chopsticks, fingers arranged elegantly over the wood. Kameko frowned to herself and bent her head to her own food, stuffing another clump of rice into her mouth. “We should be safe for the moment.”
No one bothered to ask what that meant.
Kameko itched to ask what was going to be done about Matsushita and the guards, but remembering that Naruto said that Kakashi was sharp, she didn’t mention it. Then something came to mind. “Ah --” she exclaimed, sudden and loud. She blushed when everyone stopped to stare at her, dancing her chopsticks across her plate to pick at a cucumber. “Sakura, the eye?” she said quietly.
“Ah!” Sakura exclaimed in an unintentional echo of Kameko. “Kakashi, we noticed that those hit by that jutsu often suffer bruising or hemorrhaging. Are you okay? You’ve been the one hit the hardest so far.”
Kakashi blinked blandly back at her. “I’m fine, Sakura,” he said.
“Well, it’s just that it seems to target areas of high chakra concentration, like Sasuke’s Sharingan, and so we were concerned ...”
“My Sharingan is not a high-concentration point. Don’t worry about it,” he said, flapping his hand. “Sasuke, how bad is the damage?”
“It‘ll heal,” he said.
“It’s mostly just light bruising, Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura confirmed. “As soon as his chakra settles, he should be able to use the Sharingan fine.”
“That’s good.”
They disbanded while Kakashi ate. Kameko was extremely curious as to what lay behind that mask, but she had learned that it was best to respect the wishes of other nin, and she need to patch up her shirt and body suit from the gash the guard had put there. Among her nin supplies was a needle and a spool of medical thread, but she’d though far enough ahead to bring sewing thread with her. She sat on her bed and pulled her shirt off, setting it in her lap and lining up the sides.
The black thread would make an obvious line in the pale gray shirt, which somewhat distressed her. It was a new shirt and new suit she wore, and they’d both been damaged. You’re a nin, what did you expect? She pricked her finger on the needle on accident, but ignored it. The pricks never bled, and besides, the edge of the cut were brown from dried blood.
When she finished, she slipped her shirt back on and curled on her bed to sleep.
-- To Be Continued --
NARUTO FIC
Title: Under the Bridge -- Chapter Seven UTB chapters in Five minutes or less
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG - 13
Disclaimer: Naruto isn't mine. All resemblance to peoples real and fictional on the part of the OCs is completely accidental.
Warnings: Sue!Fic, AU
Summary: Suzubashi Kameko, genin of Otogakure, takes a teammate up on a dare. Little does she know that this dare will change her life completely.
Chapters: One Two Three Four Five Six
Chapter Seven : Jutsu does what?
It turned out that she must have been able to sleep, because she was roused the next morning by Sakura and rushed out the door into a side room for a quick examination.
"Still a little tender," Sakura noticed, pushing lightly on her stomach as the healing chakra filtered through her internal organs. "That's to be expected after letting it go as long as you did. A weeks rest when all this stuff is over and you should be good as new."
"Ah, thank you," Kameko said softy. She was still unsure how to react to Sakura. "And, I'm ... um, I'm sorry for causing so much trouble both when we met and now."
Sakura looked up, and stared at her for a second with green eyes -- eyes with hidden depths to them. "Eh, don't worry about it, really. Sasuke's a little touchy these days, and you probably shouldn't have been ordered along on this mission."
That's no excuse, she thought to herself. Even a low-leveled idiot like me should have been able to recognize the early signs of internal damage. "Thank you," she said instead.
"Come on, lets get to breakfast," Sakura said, grabbing her wrist and leading her to another room. The others minus Sasuke were there. Kakashi had a plate of food before him, but he seemed more interested in watching Naruto, who seemed to be well on his way to his third helping. "Idiot! Don't eat so fast!" Sakura scolded. "You'll get sick!"
He muttered something back with what may have been a grin, but the food was hindering him. About the only word that Kameko could make out was 'Sakura-chan'.
"Don't 'Sakura-chan' me, Naruto!" she snapped back. "You slow down or I won't be cooking you any more lunches!"
This threat made him look properly horrified, and he choked down his mouthful. "Sorry, Sakura-chan," he said, a mixture being groveling and tongue-in-cheek acting making his words strange. "I'll slow down."
"You'd better! Now, Kameko, eat good, okay? You lost a lot of blood."
"Of course, Sakura," she answered, taking a seat on the other side of Naruto. She picked out a mottled mix of eggs, fish, rice and milk. It was oddly rich fare for nin on a mission, she noted with a frown on her face. Or was Otogakure really that much different than Konoha? Could Konohagakure really afford to get their ninja this sort of fare while on a mission?
Naruto chuckled when he noticed her doubtful look. "Kakashi knows how to beg up all kinds of stuff!" he said, and then frowned in what appeared to be a thoughtful manner. "It also seemed to require making you look like a guy who was pretty badly beat up and Sasuke ask for the food, but it still worked!"
Kameko stared at him for a moment as this sunk in, then turned to arch an eyebrow at the man across the table. His visible eye curved in what could only be a smile and he lifted a hand.
"Yo," he said.
"Morning," she replied, shaking her head and snapping her chopsticks apart. "Either way, thanks for getting the food."
"He didn't do it for you," a cold voice said as the door slid open. Sasuke stepped inside, an expression of irritation on his face.
"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura said with a mixture of surprise and reproach.
"Hey, jerk-face --" Naruto started.
"I didn't say he did," Kameko cut in, perhaps louder than she needed to, her voice hard. She stared back at him, a stubborn look crossing it. "But I am still profiting, and therefore still thankful."
"Kameko-chan," Sakura said vainly, somewhat surprised and largely distressed.
"I find it pathetic that you were disabled so soon in the mission," he growled back, glaring. Apparently, he'd expected the unsure nervousness she'd displayed previously where he was concerned. Normally, he would have gotten it if he hadn't said what he said in response to her thanks. She hated that. Don't tell me I'm not important, I know that well enough myself.
"I'd like to see you take on that jutsu," she snorted. "See what you do when you can't channel chakra and you're blind."
"I can do more than you did!" he snapped. "Even without chakra, you should have been able to do something."
"S-Sasuke, Kameko!" Sakura exclaimed, waving her hands at them as if to get them to calm down.
"Children, children," Kakashi cut in. Kameko's mouth shut with a snap, reacting to the leader's voice like a knee-jerk reaction, something that had been drilled into her head. When the teamleader speaks, you don't. When the teamleader says in whichever way that you are doing foolish things, you stop immediately. Kakashi's voice clearly said that they were being idiots at the moment. "Sasuke, why don't you sit down and have some breakfast?" he asked, smiling in a far too pleasant way at the dark-haired boy. "Kameko, why don't you finish your food? You'll need your strength for the travel today."
What if we get attacked again? What if that jutsu is used again? Paranoia sent her heart fluttering against her ribs. I don't want to die. "Yes, Kakashi-san," she said instead, and stuffed an entire egg in her mouth, uncaring about how gross or impolite it was.
"Hey, Kameko-chan," Naruto hissed at her a moment later. When she looked up, he screwed his face up in an odd way. "What was that thing with Sasuke?" he whispered.
It was a lost cause. There was no other talking going on at the table, and being nin, they could all hear what he was saying. Kameko smiled wanly. "He reminded me of someone, is all." He reminded me of Kanaye, who was always intent on getting me in trouble -- on getting me dead.
"Eeh? Really? You had to put up with a bastard, too?" Naruto asked with a little too much innocence. There was a hidden humor to his voice. A true smile appeared on Kameko's face in response.
"You could say that," she said. You couldn't say that the rest of them were much better.
"Hey, Sasuke-kun is not a bastard, Naruto! And don't say anything, I know what you meant!" Sakura scolded from the other side of Naruto.
"But, Sakura-chan," he whined, turning back to her. They quickly dissolved into a bickering mess, and Kameko sighed and returned to her meal, ignoring the waves of hostility that Sasuke was sending their side of the table.
Once they got a satisfactory meal in, they joined back up with Matsushita-san and his entourage. It had been decided previously that they would now remain in plain sight since a henge did nothing against the scatter-shot jutsu they'd faced yesterday, and instead simply made sure to be a good distance away from each other. Kameko had been placed even with Naruto, with Sasuke in front and Kakashi and Sakura in back. She felt oddly unhappy with that.
The guards were silent and cold, so the only noise being made was by Matsushita-san and his family. Kameko found herself wondering if the others were as ill at ease as she was. A guard tried to kill me.
This time they'd barely made it seven miles down the road when the smoke-bomb exploded. A cold chill swept over Kameko, and she was running before she could even think of how to respond to the danger.
A muffled shout, a brilliant flash, and she tumbled. The world turned upside down, but it wasn’t nearly as bad this time.
She came up flinging kunai, frightened and enraged. They’d tried it again, they tried to kill her. She saw several of her kunai strike a form still coming out of a jutsu stance, and it jerked, obviously registering the injuries but not crying out. A guard swung at her from the left, sword whistling, and she had to roll the opposite direction to avoid it, but wasn’t quick enough, a flash of pain on her back as the edge sliced through her clothing and scored. It was shallow, though, she could tell from the pain. Little more than a paper cut, or a glancing blow by a shurkin. She would know.
She was damned lucky that she was most familiar with fighting a standing opponent while she was on the ground, pivoting her body and sweeping the guards feet out from under him. She almost followed through with a kunai, but didn’t. They wouldn’t accept her killing a guard she was supposed to protect, not even if he attacked her first.
Several orange clad bodies flashed by, and she felt a breath of relief. That was one nin who had avoided the blast. She had avoided most of it when it had been directly aimed at her, so her only concern was Sasuke. He’d probably been able to avoid it, but it was best not to assume that he had until she saw him use his chakra.
Climbing to her feet, however, it became clear that the fight was over. Kakashi was making his way over to the spot spattered with blood -- where she’d been standing. He studied it for a moment, then looked about. Kameko waited for his next orders.
“Hmm, I think you should continue,” he finally said. “I have a friend to follow.” He flashed a quick glance at Kameko and dipped his head just enough for her to notice. She’d done good by wounding him. An uncomfortable tightening occurred in her chest, and she felt energized. I did something right, she marveled. Not the genius, not the others, me. I did something right.
That was a novelty in and of itself.
--
They made it safely to the next village and took room in the inn. This time, Naruto was to watch over Matsushita and his family, which left Kameko with Sakura and Sasuke. Sakura insisted on ushering Kameko off to check on her internal organs again, and then hounded Sasuke into taking his shirt off.
“You weren’t using the Sharingan,” she said, fixing him with an intimidating scowl. “Now, take it off!”
Grumbling, he did, but unlike Kameko, there was no bruising around his ribs. Both girls frowned at him in confusion for a moment before something caught Kameko’s attention.
“Hey,” she said, and searched around for a bit. When she found a rag, she handed it to Sakura. Sakura blinked at it for a moment, then her eyes narrowed. Sasuke had just begun understanding that he’d been caught when they both leapt on him.
“Get off me!” he snarled, twisting violently. Kameko hissed as a fist caught her in the chest, but he missed her breast, and therefore, while it was painful it wasn’t agonizing, and she managed to seal his hand to the floor with her own hands and chakra. She caught a leg with her own, repeating the process and then got his shoulder. He seemed adverse to hurting Sakura, and was thus pinned securely to the floor.
“You jerk!” Sakura muttered, snagging his chin in hand and scrubbing at his face with the rag. a pale residue came off onto it, and darkened skin showed through.
He hadn’t been bruised around his stomach, but he’d bruised badly around his eyes. It was worse than if he’d gotten a black eye, all discolored and yet not swollen. Sakura fused and fumed over him while he lay there, nearly helpless without his chakra, grumbling and snapping unhappily.
She finally decided that he’d only gotten a glancing blow, as nothing more than the skin had been damaged, the bleeding only under the skin and not in his brain. “I don’t like the looks of this,” she said to Kameko. “That jutsu doesn’t just disrupt the chakra flow -- it attacks the greatest source of chakra in the body.”
Kameko frowned. Something about that wasn’t right. Ignoring that she didn’t get any chakra at all from the Sune-Kosuri, something else was strange. It took her a second to catch it. “But Kakashi was nearest of all of us to the first attack, and he didn’t seem hurt like this. Doesn’t he have some source that would be equally damaged?”
“Sharingan Kakashi?” Sakura asked, arching her eyebrow. “I didn’t think to look, but his Sharingan eye should have been damaged. We’ll have to look when he gets back.”
“Feh,” Sasuke said under them, as if he couldn’t believe that they’d be able to make Kakashi do anything. On reflection, Kameko agreed.
“Can you use your chakra now, Kameko-chan?” Sakura asked. “Aside from sealing Sasuke-kun to the floor.”
“I could check,” she said as they released the boy. He stood quickly and moved away to sulk by the window. Kameko pondered through her known jutsu for a moment before deciding on one of Tanaka’s favorites that didn’t require a lot of chakra, just in case it would be another case of yesterday. She pulled the single senbon she’d managed to get from her thigh-case, and tossed it up just enough to suspend it while she formed the seals as quickly as she could. She wasn’t quiet fast enough, and the sudden multitude of needles fell to the floor with a sound like bells. “Eh, it’s working fine from what I can tell. Still a little sluggish, but it works,” she said as she gathered them up in her hand.
“Where did you learn that jutsu?” Sakura asked, face unreadable. Kameko went blank, noting that both she and Sasuke were staring at her with strange expressions.
“I, ah ...” she stuttered, panicking. She hadn’t thought about it, but she was supposed to be pretending to be a new genin, not nin who’d long been a genin at a different village. “I ah, saw it being done, and I, ah,” she said weakly. She knew that it could take a year to figure out how to make the chakra flow correctly through the seals even if you had the pattern memorized. That was how long it took her to steal Tanaka’s jutsu.
Sakura and Sasuke were smart. They wouldn’t be fooled. She had to think of a convincing lie now. Before she could think, she smiled, tilting her head to the side. “I just sorta copied it. That’s why I was sent here, of course. My family understood that I would continue to do so, and they didn’t want me in a war, so they sent me to Kohona.” She paused. “Its a little embarrassing, don’t you think, to have been sent here so old not because I had talent, but because I was too stubborn to accept anything else?”
They stared at her a moment longer, and then Sakura smiled back. “Yeah, a little. But I’m sure you’ll make it!”
Sasuke just grunted and turned back to the window.
After a while, Sakura left to get them some food, which left Sasuke and Kameko alone with an uncomfortable silence. She decided to take the time to pick a bed out, and ended up choosing the one in the corner, away from the door and the window. It wasn’t her favorite place to be, but it gave Sasuke the best chance to get as far away from her as he wanted to. She didn’t want to get into another argument, after all.
She snapped awake, confused and blurry when the door opened. Sakura was coming in with food, which left Kameko bemused for a moment until she realized she must have fallen asleep while waiting for her to come back.
“Any thing happen?” she asked, not yet awake enough to realize that if anything had happened that Sakura would have given some sign.
“Except for stupid men?” Sakura asked, rolling her eyes. “No.”
“Oh.”
Eventually, Sasuke and Kameko joined Sakura to eat, though Sasuke was sulking and had his face turned to hide the bruising. He was likely nursing a bruised ego, too. Kameko wasn’t concerned -- she knew the only reason they had managed to subdue him was his lack of chakra and the fact that one of them was Sakura.
They were finishing their meal when the door opened and Kakashi strolled in. “Ate without your sensei?” he asked. “How cruel.”
“We didn’t know when you’d be back, Kakashi,” Sakura said, undaunted. “It’d do us little good not to eat if case you didn’t come back.”
“Ah, correct!” Kakashi said with odd brightness. He ambled over and sat at the empty seat, and nodded at Sakura when she set a box of food in front of him. “So, I found our friend,” he said, setting his chin into his palm.
“Oh? What did you do to him?”
“Had a talk. What else? It seems he isn’t the originator of the jutsu he used on us.” Kakashi idly poked at his food with his chopsticks, fingers arranged elegantly over the wood. Kameko frowned to herself and bent her head to her own food, stuffing another clump of rice into her mouth. “We should be safe for the moment.”
No one bothered to ask what that meant.
Kameko itched to ask what was going to be done about Matsushita and the guards, but remembering that Naruto said that Kakashi was sharp, she didn’t mention it. Then something came to mind. “Ah --” she exclaimed, sudden and loud. She blushed when everyone stopped to stare at her, dancing her chopsticks across her plate to pick at a cucumber. “Sakura, the eye?” she said quietly.
“Ah!” Sakura exclaimed in an unintentional echo of Kameko. “Kakashi, we noticed that those hit by that jutsu often suffer bruising or hemorrhaging. Are you okay? You’ve been the one hit the hardest so far.”
Kakashi blinked blandly back at her. “I’m fine, Sakura,” he said.
“Well, it’s just that it seems to target areas of high chakra concentration, like Sasuke’s Sharingan, and so we were concerned ...”
“My Sharingan is not a high-concentration point. Don’t worry about it,” he said, flapping his hand. “Sasuke, how bad is the damage?”
“It‘ll heal,” he said.
“It’s mostly just light bruising, Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura confirmed. “As soon as his chakra settles, he should be able to use the Sharingan fine.”
“That’s good.”
They disbanded while Kakashi ate. Kameko was extremely curious as to what lay behind that mask, but she had learned that it was best to respect the wishes of other nin, and she need to patch up her shirt and body suit from the gash the guard had put there. Among her nin supplies was a needle and a spool of medical thread, but she’d though far enough ahead to bring sewing thread with her. She sat on her bed and pulled her shirt off, setting it in her lap and lining up the sides.
The black thread would make an obvious line in the pale gray shirt, which somewhat distressed her. It was a new shirt and new suit she wore, and they’d both been damaged. You’re a nin, what did you expect? She pricked her finger on the needle on accident, but ignored it. The pricks never bled, and besides, the edge of the cut were brown from dried blood.
When she finished, she slipped her shirt back on and curled on her bed to sleep.
-- To Be Continued --