Two weeks later, the Sound attacked again.

They were subtler this time, since their numbers were running low. They were also bolder, because Orochimaru had decided Sasuke had no intention of coming back on his own.

So rather than sending two large groups of shinobi, like last time, he sent the Sound's new Four instead: Sasuke's old teammates.

They attacked during the day, while Sasuke and Naruto were at one of the training grounds.

The anbu who'd been with them was killed first, unable to withstand four people who were at curse seal level one. Sasuke and Naruto put up a good fight, but then the four went to level two, and then they managed to place a seal around Naruto, and then things went bad.

Sasuke had picked off the second-weakest of the four while he was distracted with creating the seal--Koushun was currently dying from the chidori several meters to his left.

He'd wasted his second chidori attack trying to hit Kazuo--which had been stupid, he should have gone after Setona, but . . . hindsight.

His gaze flicked from Koushun's curled up form to the opposite side of his peripheral vision, where Naruto was cursing and kicking at the invisible walls of his seal, before focusing on the three remaining Soundnins before him.

Tayuya was standing in front, and swearing more than Naruto and yanking a shurikan from her upper arm with a grimace. The extensive scars along her legs were still visible beneath the coloring of the second level.

"Fight us for real, coward," she said flatly.

Setona said under his breath, "Tayuya, we're supposed to bring him back un--"

"Fuck that!" Tayuya yelled to him without looking away. "I'm not taking a goddamn weakling to be Orochimaru-sama's container! Just look at you," she added, increasing her glare. "Relying on the same old crap they taught you before you came to us. You know that useless shit isn't good enough--now fight, or I'll kill you!"

Sasuke kept his gaze focused on Tayuya. Setona was shifting slightly towards her. Kazuo was watching the seal, cradling his bleeding arm that one of Naruto's clones had ripped up with a kunai against his bleeding chest, which two others had done. On his left, Koushun was no longer twitching. On his right, Naruto had stopped kicking at the walls and was staring at him.

"Or are you 'still not good enough yet, Sasuke-kun'?" she added.

Sasuke's eyes narrowed slightly, before he let the corners of his mouth twist upward.

"Fine," he said, and willed the curse seal to overpower Kakashi's restraining one. The seal slithered down his left arm and up to his face immediately, warm and invigorating. "Since you want to die. . . ."

Tayuya snorted.

Level one of the seal had to be in place for a few moments before level two could be activated, but the Soundnins were courteous enough to wait. Sasuke thought back to the moment he'd 'died,' when his body had changed permanently, and strained to bring that feeling back.

What happened next was too fast, too simultaneous, that it wasn't until later when he had time to sort things into order that he fully understood what had occurred.

That chakra exploded into his senses, at the same time that Kazuo yelled "Ta--!", at the same time that a dark orange blur slammed into Tayuya and took her and itself out of his line of sight.

Sasuke instinctively shoved himself up, out of reach, out of immediate danger, and landed on one of the upper branches of a nearby tree.

Tayuya screamed, a high pained sound that choked off when the fox-Naruto flung her away from him. A string of intestines, dark and slick-looking in the filtered sunlight, trailed out behind until Naruto let go of them. Her body smashed into the trunk of a tree and sank to the ground.

Sasuke swallowed once, staring, and then bit his thumb hard.

He pressed his palm against the branch and concentrated as much chakra as he was willing to lose into it, drawing on the curse seal to replace what he'd lost with the chidori. Focus, focus, you need the right one. . . . "Animal summoning!"

His hand was shoved up a good fifteen centimeters, and the rough bark was replaced with slick scales.

A cobra lifted its head and looked at him with a mildly annoyed expression. "You again."

The wrong one. Damn it; he hadn't concentrated hard enough.

Below, Naruto was crouched next to Tayuya, probably making sure that she was dead. Sasuke could see Kazuo in the trees to his right, but it was too far to make out more than his movements with the sharingan. Setona was nowhere in sight, which meant he must have already hidden himself in an illusion.

The cobra looked down at Naruto and let out a quiet hiss that could have been a laugh. "You got into a real mess this time, huh, child?" It wrapped itself around Sasuke's thigh and stretched up past his shoulder, watching Naruto's gaze search the trees. "Best run away. You don't stand a chance."

Sasuke didn't like the snakes. There was one that liked him and would actually obey his orders--the rest were assholes.

"No," he replied.

Another hissed laugh. "No, it wouldn't be smart to run from that one."

Kazuo burst out from the trees. He landed against the trunk of one behind Naruto, swung around it and shoved off with his feet before hitting a tree to the right. His level two form granted him an almost insane speed--Naruto hadn't fully turned around before Kazuo had almost circled him.

Sasuke followed his movements with the sharingan; and when he saw that Kazuo going to swing around again and go for the tree opposite himself once more, he recognized the move. Kazuo was trailing thin, razor-sharp wires behind him, caging the other teenager in; but they were only to keep Naruto distracted and slowed down enough that Setona could work a genjutsu.

At level two, Setona's illusions might be enough to confuse even the fox demon. . . .

And because of those damn illusions, he couldn't see the other teenager, not even with the sharingan. If I had the mangekyou. . . .

"Nahash-san," Sasuke said. "Do you see a boy around here?"

"There's two down there. I thought you had special eyes, child," the cobra replied.

He really didn't like the snakes. "With dark blue hair. He's hidden behind a genjutsu."

Nahash actually looked around instead of smarting off again. Sasuke suspected it was because Naruto's chakra had just split apart from his body and grabbed Kazuo's leg before he could reach another tree. It flung the teenager to the side, and he slammed into one of his wires, tearing a long line across the side of his torso. "That would be the one two trees to your left."

"Go kill him," Sasuke said, and Nahash uncurled from his leg and left. He hoped the cobra was really listening and not just running off, but there was no time to dwell on it--Kazuo's next move was going to be jumping onto his branch.

Stupid . . . but then, Sasuke had kept the actual mechanics of his sharingan a secret. Only Orochimaru, Kabuto, and Tayuya would have known better.

When Kazuo jumped over the grasp of Naruto and Naruto's chakra, he only got one foot onto the branch before Sasuke had a kunai buried in his throat and a second one in his stomach.

He stared into Kazuo's wide gray eyes with narrowed red ones, and then wrenched the kunai in his throat to the left and the one in his stomach to the right.

The one in Kazuo's throat came out cleanly, splattering blood across Sasuke's face with it, but the other one became wedged in the mush of the organs. When that dark orange chakra wrapped around Kazuo's leg again and pulled, Sasuke let the second kunai go and watched it crash with the other teenager to the ground. Kazuo's body hit one of the wires on the way, bisecting his leg. It also sliced away part of the chakra, inciting a deep and unmistakably inhuman growl from Naruto.

That left him with the bloody kunai in his left hand, and the two remaining in his pouch. He'd used all his shurikan on Tayuya, and he hadn't brought any wire with him today. Shit.

When had he started getting so careless again?

There was a rustle to the left, a short scream, the sound of ripping flesh, and then Setona's body fell out of the trees. When he hit the ground, Sasuke could see that there was only a bloody, pulped mess where his throat was supposed to be.

Naruto gave the body a cursory glance before looking up at him. He snapped his hand to the side, flicking some of the gore off, and smiled wide enough to show off his incisors.

"Come down," the fox-Naruto said.

If Sasuke hadn't spent the last three years with Orochimaru, the undercurrent in his voice would have made him shiver.

"Or run," the fox added, grinning wider.

. . . he's not there at all, Sasuke slowly realized. This wasn't Naruto using the fox demon's chakra--this was the fox demon using Naruto's body.

Shit.

When he'd 'died,' it had felt like being on fire--like misdirecting the great fireball jutsu and getting caught in it as a result. Only it had been very cold.

The purple haze at the edges of his vision slipped away, replaced by a heavy gray.

Sasuke dug his fingers into the bark of the branch as the second level closed over him, and he grit his teeth when the scars on his back were torn open yet again, but he didn't look away from the fox.

Naruto grinned wider--too wide, human mouths couldn't go that wide--and crouched. He was going to jump on the branch.

Sasuke shoved himself off, far to the right, knowing it wouldn't be far enough to account for the fox's chakra's mobility.

And it wasn't--he felt it grab his shin and yank him in the opposite direction before letting go.

Sasuke wrapped the wings around himself, leaving them to take the majority of the impact when he slammed into a tree trunk. But it still jarred him, and he fell before he could think to get a good foothold on anything, hitting the ground painfully. The impact twisted his leg underneath him, and he couldn't get back onto his feet soon enough--too slow, too slow!

He wrenched the wings away from him, kunai still in hand. The blade had cut into one of them when he'd curled it in, but there was no time to care, it was going to attack. . . .

Except it wasn't. The fox's claws were gouged into the dirt, and it was staring down at the ground, more bent than crouched now. It wasn't looking at him.

Sasuke took the opportunity to jerk the remaining two kunai out of his pouch. He gripped them between the fingers of his other hand, and watched the fox warily.

The blond twitched once. Sasuke set his footing and brought his arms back to throw the kunai.

"I said not him!" Naruto yelled at the top of his lungs, and then the bitter chakra faded.

There was a moment of quiet.

Sasuke kept the kunai up. Naruto was breathing heavily.

Finally, the other teenager lifted his head enough to look at his hands. "Asshole," he muttered, before reaching up to wipe away a trickle of blood where his incisor had cut his lip.

Sasuke waited for two more long seconds. Then he let his breath out through his teeth, and dropped his arms. He braced one hand on the ground, shifting to take the weight off of the leg he'd damaged in his fall.

Naruto looked over at him. "You okay?"

"Fine," Sasuke replied, with as much sarcasm and condescension as he could possibly force into the word. Naruto made a face at him.

"Your arm's burnt," Sasuke pointed out a few moments later.

Naruto looked down at the hand where the chakra had been separating from. "Doesn't hurt yet."

Sasuke would have snorted, but that was too difficult to do while breathing through his mouth. He made an insulting noise in the back of his throat instead.

Naruto glared at him, but was too preoccupied with slowing his heartbeat down to exert the energy getting vocally mad would require.

Naruto was breathing through his mouth as well--it cut down on the stench. Sasuke's eyes fell on the trail of intestines running behind the other teenager, and he followed it up to Tayuya's still form. She'd fallen face-down, but her head was tilted enough that he could see her eyes were blank. If she hadn't been dead when Naruto threw her, she was now.

He stared for too long--Naruto frowned and looked behind him as well.

When he looked back, Sasuke's eyes were closed and he was forcing the level two curse seal down.

Naruto's frown deepened, and he shifted on his feet. "Hey," he started to say, "you. . . ."

Then the anbu and jounin arrived.

—

They weren't brought to the hospital. Once it was determined that neither of them were critically wounded, they were led to the Hokage's tower.

Sasuke wondered if they were more nervous about having Naruto or him in the public building.

He could have complained--Naruto did--since the tower was farther away than the hospital, but Sasuke refused to announce his weakness. He could still walk, and walk steadily enough that it wasn't obvious how much the second level of the curse drained him, and that was enough.

It also helped that Kakashi was keeping a hand on his shoulder, and subtly preventing him from stumbling.

Sasuke didn't know whether he'd managed to force the seal down before the man had gotten close enough to see him, but he pretended he had.

—

On the second floor of the tower, there was a room set just off the main hallway that contained four beds and a collection of various scrolls and medical equipment. It was a combination of a training space for medical ninjas and a backup emergency room.

He and Naruto were in there, along with Sakura, who had finished wrapping Naruto's right hand and was now examining Sasuke's leg, and Tsunade.

The fifth Hokage was sitting in a chair against the wall, arms folded beneath her breasts. She hadn't spoken since she walked into the room, sat down and told Sakura to look over their injuries. Sasuke had closed his eyes several minutes ago, because he was too tired to pretend that he could keep them open, but he was sure that she was still watching the three of them with that impassive expression.

Even Naruto had fallen quiet when she walked in, so Sasuke wasn't looking forward to when Tsunade decided her anger was controlled enough that she could speak.

"You should be okay," Sakura murmured, though her voice still came out loud in the silence. "You pulled the muscles, but nothing's sprained or broken. They should be fine by tomorrow or the day after, but I can heal them now?"

"I'm fine," Sasuke replied. "Don't waste your chakra on something so minor."

There was a pause, and he had the suspicion that she rolled her eyes. "Fine," Sakura said with a you-stupid-macho-guy undertone. There was a shift on the mattress when she moved away from his leg to settle behind him. "That just leaves these to fix, and then--"

Sasuke shuddered violently when she lightly touched the raw patches on his back, and jerked away. He stood up and walked around to the third bed in the room, and sat down on the edge, glaring at the floor.

Sakura stared at him, her hand still hesitantly raised in the air. When he wouldn't look up, she let it drop to her lap and looked away. She tucked one leg beneath her, intertwined her fingers, and like Naruto and Sasuke, waited.

Tsunade remained silent for another minute and a half. The pause was long enough that Sasuke collected himself and shifted his gaze from the floor to her, though he modified the glare to a blank stare that bordered on insolent.

Tsunade ignored him. When she finally spoke, it was to Naruto.

"You realize you've frightened the village."

"Sorry," he mumbled under his breath.

"You can't just do that, Naruto."

"I didn't have a choice!" he said defensively, finally looking up at her. "That psycho girl, Sasuke was gonna listen to her, and I had to, to. . . ." He exhaled heavily.

Tsunade glanced from the corner of her eye at Sasuke. His expression hadn't changed.

"I could've kept better control over it, but I was trapped," Naruto said, less loudly. "It . . . I dunno, used that. Somehow. I thought I had a better grip."

That was not something Tsunade had looked forward to hearing. She exhaled harshly before she could think about it, and kept her arms folded.

"This is why you aren't allowed to go on missions with Sakura anymore," Tsunade said evenly. "The ward is useless if you're going to throw it off every time one of your companions is in danger. You have to have better self-control, Naruto. I don't. . . ."

I don't want to be forced to. . . . Not now, not yet, not so young. . . .

"I know," he said quietly. "Sorry. I won't--. . . I'll try not to do it anymore." He scratched the back of his head. "This was stupid, anyway--they weren't half as strong as the old ones."

"A third," Sasuke replied. "Orochimaru hadn't found suitable replacements yet. These guys sucked in comparison."

Still that blank look from him. Sakura's hands fidgeted in her lap.

Naruto nodded in agreement, and said, "Yeah. We could have beaten them on our own, if you hadn't decided to be a dumbass and fall for her goading."

"Better than being an idiot who gets trapped in an obvious seal."

"Guys," Sakura said loudly.

Naruto settled for glaring at Sasuke over her shoulder. Sasuke sneered slightly and closed his eyes again, so Naruto pulled down his eyelid and stuck his tongue out at him before looking away.

"Hn," Tsunade finally replied. "Naruto, go get your ward from the forest--and you better not have broken it--and then, I want you to spend the night at Lee's. Sakura, you'll walk him there?"

"Sure!" she said. ". . . Um . . . I could, if it's necessary, I don't mind. . . ."

Tsunade carefully refrained from smiling--Naruto's half-snicker was enough. "If you can afford to stay over as well, that would be helpful."

"Yes, ma'am!" She stood.

"Aw, Tsunade, just let him go sleep," came Jiraiya's voice from the doorway. "If he's been quiet for this long, he's getting sick."

"Yah!" Naruto yelled in surprise, scrambling back on the bed slightly and pointing. "Pervert sennin! You--stop just showing up like that!"

"Hey, quit calling me that," Jiraiya replied, stepping into the room. "Call me 'gallant Jiraiya-sensei,' you disrespectful brat."

Naruto folded his arms, a little more gingerly than usual because of the bandages, and stuck out his tongue. "If I called you sensei, people'd think I was crazy."

"Or that you'd finally learned manners," Sakura added, leaning against the bed with a hand on her hip.

"Same thing," Sasuke commented before Naruto could reply.

Naruto made a rude hand motion towards him. "You're one to talk!"

"Out," Tsunade interrupted. "Take Uchiha to Kakashi's, and then go home. The ward can wait until tomorrow. I have other business to deal with."

Amid mumbled "Yes"es, the three all got onto their feet and left the room.

Naruto was barely a meter down the hall before he cheerfully crowed, "Alright! I don't have to wear that stupid thing 'til tomorrow!"

"Don't sound so happy about it!" Sakura said in an annoyed tone.

Jiraiya watched the three walk down the hallway. "Ever get the feeling déjà vu is beating you over the head?"

Tsunade snorted and crossed her legs. "I didn't bother trying to stop you guys' fights," she replied. ". . . And I hit you more."

Jiraiya let out a long-suffering sigh as he sat down on one of the beds. "Heartless to me even then, Tsunade-hime. . . ."

When he trailed off, they could hear Sakura's voice further down the hallway.

"--talk about him in front of her."

"She doesn't like me," Sasuke said flatly. "What I do or don't say won't change that."

"That doesn't mean you need to invite trouble."

"She's only doing her job, Sakura-chan."

"I know, but she likes you."

"It won't make a difference," Naruto replied. "The Hokage has to look out for Konoha first, even if that means. . . ."

". . . Just don't say his name," Sakura said, and her voice was quieter not just because of the distance. "Maybe . . . if--"

"Fine," Sasuke said, and there was the sound of a door opening.

"I don't like it," Tsunade said, wanting to drown out the unspoken part of Naruto's comment. "Sakura was really growing into her own. But now that Uchiha's returned, she's letting herself be dragged into being the balance between those two again. It's a waste."

"Do you know if she considers it 'dragging'?" Jiraiya asked, doing that occasional thing of his that Tsunade hated, where he was an intuitive smartass.

She pushed the door beside her shut. "What did you learn?"

"Akatsuki is still after him. And since their Ashibe hasn't returned by now, they've assumed we caught and killed him." Jiraiya braced a foot on the bed frame and rested his arm on his knee. "I don't know whether they think we got anything out of him, but we're better off not assuming that they underestimate your skills."

"Hn," was all Tsunade said.

"However," he added. "They've been holding off, probably waiting for the Sound to weaken us before coming in--but if they learn that Naruto was caught up in this attempt to get Sasuke, they're not going to wait anymore."

Tsunade leaned back, resting an arm on the back of the chair. "I can't put any more guards over him without it getting suspicious. Even if we kept them separate. . . ."

"Even if we kept them separate, it would just mean that half the village would end up fighting the Sound, and the other half would get decimated by Akatsuki," Jiraiya said blandly.

Tsunade swore under her breath for several seconds.

Jiraiya looked at the door. "We should have killed him before this happened," he said. "The fourth Hokage was my student . . . I should have taken the responsibility."

Tsunade shifted in her chair. "Maybe if you just hadn't taught him to rely on that chakra. He shouldn't call you sensei."

"I meant before we wound up caring," Jiraiya replied. "He was supposed to be Konoha's best weapon, in case that war revived. But it didn't, so Sarutobi-sensei should have . . . I should have. . . ."

He trailed off, and Tsunade didn't say anything in reply. Her gaze slipped over Jiraiya's shoulder to the wall.

"Stupid brat," he muttered.

—

Sakura had to stop in Tsunade's office to pick up a packet that she'd left behind in the rush, but after that the three of them met Kakashi in the first floor hallway and made their way to his apartment.

The man suggested walking Sakura and Naruto to Lee's first, but the shirt Sasuke was wearing was still torn, and she was worried about him getting an infection. When they arrived at his home, he again offered to walk them there, but Sakura shook her head.

Naruto said nothing; he just slouched against the wall and kicked the step absently. Sasuke wondered what the hell was wrong now, until Sakura spoke and it became obvious.

"There won't be a problem, Kakashi-sensei," she said reassuringly. "Lee and I can take turns staying up. And, we'll have an anbu member there--if anyone tries to hurt us, he'll stop them. We'll be okay."

Kakashi didn't look satisfied, so Sakura added, "We'll take the back streets there. Hardly anyone will see us, I promise."

"Teleport," Sasuke said shortly. "People are stupider in mobs."

Naruto hunched in a little more. Sakura pressed her lips together slightly, then nodded.

Then she paused, frowned, and said, "Wait, Sasuke, did you or Naruto have lunch before you got attacked?"

"Nuh-uh!" Naruto answered, finally looking up from the floor and smiling a little too brightly. "So can we have ramen when we get back?" he added.

Sakura shrugged. "Lee is out training with his team until dark, so I could just make something for everyone . . . Kakashi-sensei, did you eat yet?"

"Not much."

"Do you have anything that's edible?"

". . . I suppose that depends on your definition. . . ."

"There's rice in the cabinet," Sasuke answered. "It's the only thing besides the coffee that hasn't expired yet."

Sakura made a face. "Eww, how can you live like that?"

"The bread's still good," Kakashi said in his defense.

"We ate the last of it for breakfast."

". . . Huh, yeah."

"Ramen is better than rice," Naruto offered.

Sakura was already walking toward the kitchen area. "Your opinion on food doesn't count, Naruto."

"Meeeeean, Sakura-chan!"

"Kakashi-sensei, don't you have any cooking pots? . . . Or bowls?"

"Under the sink," Sasuke said as he walked into the bedroom and shut the door.

—

Sakura managed to make lunch for the four of them despite having only rice, water, and one good egg. (She really wanted to know how someone with Kakashi's sense of smell could ignore the fact that the other five were rotten.) She hunted down three bowls and a plate, warned Kakashi that he needed to go shopping that night before the two of them starved, and kicked Naruto to the other side of the room when he started hovering around the stove.

Sasuke had changed shirts while she was cooking, and washed the blood off of his face. The thought of fabric rubbing those uncovered wounds on his back made Sakura wince internally, but she didn't say anything.

She set Kakashi and Naruto's bowls in front of them, then Sasuke's, and settled down at the small table with the plate.

"Thanks for the food," Naruto mumbled, busy trying to use his chopsticks with his left hand. She and Kakashi repeated the statement.

Sasuke picked up his own bowl and chopsticks. "Thanks for the--"

He paused, lifted the bowl a little closer to his nose, and then looked across the table at her.

Sakura swallowed before speaking. She scraped together more of the rice--it wasn't sticking very well--with her chopsticks, focusing on the plate as she said, "It's a sedative. It'll put you to sleep for a while, to give your back a chance to heal."

"Huh?" Naruto said, looking between them. Kakashi continued eating.

Sasuke stared at the bowl with an unreadable expression, resting his chopsticks on the rim. After almost fifteen seconds passed, he picked them up and silently began to eat.

Four minutes later he was asleep, face hidden in his arms on the tabletop. Naruto stared from where he'd given up on the chopsticks and started eating with his hand, both eyebrows raised. "Wow, Sakura-chan, what'd you give him?"

"A really strong sedative," she answered, finishing the last of her rice and setting the chopsticks aside. "I could have used a less powerful one, and he might not have noticed it, but . . . that wouldn't have been right."

Kakashi set his chopsticks across his bowl before wiping his mouth and pulling his mask back up. "Even I haven't asked that much from him," he said evenly.

Sakura nodded. "I know. . . . But if he won't trust us, there's not. . . ." She bit her lip slightly, then shook her head and stood up. "Can I borrow a scroll and some ink from you?"

Kakashi stood as well. "I should have a couple blank ones left on that shelf." He picked Sasuke up beneath his arms, careful to avoid touching the teenager's back. "Where do you want him?"

"Wherever he sleeps, I guess, please," she answered, rummaging through the scrolls. "Then you won't have to move him later."

Kakashi hauled Sasuke off to the bedroom.

Sakura found a blank scroll, unrolled it on the floor, and set a brush and a quarter-empty pot of ink from the second shelf beside it.

Naruto was still sitting at the table, but he'd pushed all the bowls over enough that he could rest his elbows on it. He watched her carefully draw a circle in the middle of the paper, licking a few stray grains of rice off his hand.

"I stayed here," he sulked. "It sucks and lots of people are assholes, but I don't think about leaving."

"That's a stupid analogy, Naruto," Sakura said.

He folded his arms on the table and scooted back enough to rest his chin on them, watching her hands.

Sakura dipped the brush into the ink again, and then paused.

"The dream you're chasing is here," she said quietly. "But the dream he's chasing is walking around out there. Forcing him to stay is like demanding you leave."

Naruto didn't reply, and Sakura sighed violently.

". . . It doesn't mean that you're not strong for staying here, okay? If--if I were in your place, I don't know if. . . . It just means that you can't compare yourselves," she finished. "Nothing good happens when you do, dammit. Naruto is Naruto. Sasuke is Sasuke. You have different goals."

She swished the brush around in the ink a few times in the following silence, before tapping it on the rim so none would drip onto the scroll or Kakashi's floor.

". . . I got stronger," Naruto said quietly. ". . . We both did." He mumbled something she couldn't hear, before adding, "I bet I would've worked hard to deserve his approval if he'd ever given it, but not as hard as I did just to get the jerk to acknowledge me."

He trailed off then, waiting for her to reply.

Sakura knew if she looked up and saw Naruto's pale red eyes staring at her through his bangs, she would ask: At what cost?

So she didn't say anything, and began writing the first of the lines out from the circle.

Naruto shifted on the table a few moments later, then sat up again and propped his chin on his fists, still watching her write. "If he leaves, and I hunt him down and break his legs and bring him back again, you'll heal them, right? So nobody gets suspicious and stuff?"

Sakura laughed once, more startled and relieved than amused. Then she shook her head and continued writing the lines. "Yes, Naruto, I'll heal his legs. And then I'll heal your ribs when he breaks them in retaliation."

"Okay. 'Cause I won't feel bad about doing it, knowing that," Naruto told her.

Sakura laughed slightly again, under her breath. "You wouldn't have felt bad anyway."

"I would a little!" he protested.

"Uh-huh."

Sakura's head was bent over the scroll, but Naruto could see that she was smiling slightly again, so he let her have the last word.

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