Sakura stops two steps inside the bar and makes a face. "Are you sure this is the right place?"

Naruto sighs. "Yeah. It's kinda illegal to hire missing-nin, you know? So they can't afford to attract official attention, and as long as they're breaking one law, they might as well break lots." He stares sourly at the life-size posters of naked women (and the occasional naked boy or man) plastered to the walls, and offers silent thanks to the kami that the curtains are drawn across the stage so Sakura can't see the poles, chains, and other props for what has to be the most twisted show the old pervert ever made him sit through.

He risks a look over his shoulder at Sasuke. "Hey, hey, drop the eyes, bastard. We don't want to get recognized until we're out of Wave Country."

Sasuke folds his arms, but when he returns Naruto's glare his eyes are pure black.

Sakura's still examining the room and its scattered patrons, hands perched on her hips and a dangerous gleam in her green eyes. "You thought I couldn't handle this, didn't you," she says. "You thought I'd flip out, or that some piece of scum might grab me and I wouldn't be able to protect myself. That's why you wouldn't let me come alone."

Naruto recognizes the tone of her voice and gulps. "Um."

"You complete, utter, condescending idiot!"

She pulls the punch so he doesn't crash through the door, just into it. Naruto picks himself up, flips Sasuke off for laughing (well, okay, he's not actually laughing, but that little smirk and the funny light in his eyes is the same as any normal person rolling around on the floor), and tries his biggest puppy-dog eyes on Sakura. "Hey, hey, that's not it! I just don't want to be stuck alone with Sasuke-bastard, and we're supposed to be a team. Don't you trust me, Sakura-chan?"

"Shouldn't she be asking you that question?" Sasuke asks.

Sakura sighs. "Forget it," she says, and leads the way to a corner table. People watch them with hard, calculating eyes, and tense as they pass. Missing-nin can't afford to let down their guard, not even around each other, and Naruto can pick out at least five shinobi in the building. They're not wearing forehead protectors, but he can tell. And there's nothing he can do about it.

All the hidden villages know that Wave Country is a hiding place for missing-nin, but as long as nobody stirs up too much trouble or draws too much attention, it's easier to pretend that all these outcast ninja are really civilians. No forehead protectors, right? Obviously they can't be shinobi. And even if they were missing-nin, well, if the villages cleaned up Wave Country, the underground would just move somewhere else. So why bother?

Naruto scowls as he orders a bowl of ramen and a beer. Yeah, so if there weren't any missing-nin then scum like Gato couldn't hire thugs and make trouble, and then people wouldn't bother to hire honest shinobi to protect themselves, and the hidden villages would lose a lot of jobs. So all the Leaf-nin would have to work for scum, and end up fighting shinobi from other villages instead of missing-nin, and probably start another great war. So there are reasons nobody's gonna come clean out Wave Country, or that seedy little town on the border of Fire and Wind Countries, or that city district up in Thunder Country... but it still stinks.

"You shouldn't drink on duty," Sakura says when their food arrives. She leans sideways and pokes him with her chopstick. "And when did you start drinking anway? I'll have to tell Tsunade-sensei that Jiraiya-san's been a bad influence on you."

Naruto shrugs. "It's a bar and we're supposed to be missing-nin. It'd look weird if none of us drank. Besides, it's not like it does much to me." He waves toward his stomach, and Sakura sighs.

Sasuke swallows a mouthful of rice and snorts. "All that power and you use it to avoid hangovers. Moron."

"Hey!"

"Shush." Sakura pokes him again with her chopstick, then reaches across the table to wave the piece of wood in Sasuke's face. "And you stop smirking at Naruto. You can beat each other up after we leave."

Naruto mumbles a half-hearted apology and settles down to appreciate his ramen. It isn't as good as Ichiraku, or the shrimp ramen he talked Inari's mom into making last night when they dropped in to visit old man Tazuna, but it's still ramen. And he's not ever gonna let anything distract him when he's eating ramen.

Sakura waits for him to finish before she asks, "How long do we have to wait before someone offers us a job?"

Naruto shrugs. "Beats me. When the old pervert dragged me here it was a week before he took a contract, but he was being kinda picky and, well, he's a pervert."

Sasuke raises an eyebrow.

"They do a stage show," Naruto says. "Really kinky. Hey, if we stick around another couple hours they'll bring out the pole dancers. You wanna watch?" He leers across the table and mentally clenches a fist in victory when the bastard flushes. Then Sakura slaps the back of his head and it's time for his face to meet its new best friend, the table.

Oh well, can't win 'em all.

Naruto straightens and wipes blood away from his squashed nose. "Anyway, the first day is just so people can look us over and pass the word that we're available. Tomorrow the bartender might start sending people over to us -- if we ask him when we pay the bill."

"...How much extra?" Sasuke asks.

"Depends. If we're kinda intimidating, it costs less money, but he might send us some real scum in revenge." Naruto scowls. "Hey, hey, how'd you know about the bribes?"

Sakura echoes his suspicious stare with an expression of mild curiosity, and after a few seconds Sasuke lowers his eyes. "Hidden Sound isn't as well-established as the other villages, so Orochimaru finds some contracts through the underground. He also likes to recruit missing-nin. I went on three hiring missions." He shrugs. "I'm a missing-nin. Some shinobi can sense that, and it helps convince them that Orochimaru is honest about his offers of sanctuary."

"You're not a missing-nin, bastard," Naruto hisses before he can stop himself.

"Moron. I left Konoha, I fought Leaf-nin with intent to kill, and I didn't swear loyalty to Sound. What else would I be?"

Okay, so he's got a point, but this is Sasuke. He's part of their team. He didn't leave 'cause he wanted to betray Konoha; he just wanted to get strong and he was too stupid to realize that the snake-freak's offer was poison. Or just too stupid to care, which is more like the bastard; damn if Sasuke can't make himself blind sometimes. Naruto rubs his chest absently. There's no scar from where Sasuke tried to rip out his heart, but sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night with a burning ache where there ought to be a mark. Then he reminds himself that Sasuke didn't kill him when he had the chance. Sasuke's got tunnel vision, but he's not half as cold as he pretends he is.

"You didn't kill me," Naruto says. "You could've, and you would've gotten Itachi's freaky eyes, but you didn't. And the Sound hasn't attacked the Leaf in three years. You're not a traitor."

Sasuke looks pointedly at Naruto's hand, which is still touching his heart. Naruto scowls and slams his fist down on the table. "So what! Yeah, anyone else would've died, but anyone else wouldn't have pushed you that far in the first place. I don't care."

And that's the truth: he doesn't. He's had three years to think it over, to try to figure out just what the hell Sasuke thought he was doing, and he's decided that in the end, he just doesn't care. Naruto loves Konoha -- it's his home, and he's going to be Hokage or else! -- but he loves it because his precious people live there. So really, he loves his precious people more.

Sasuke was his first friend, his best friend. He can't forgive the way Choji, Neji, and Akamaru almost died, and the way Shikamaru still broods if anyone reminds him of that mission, but when Sasuke tried killing Naruto... well, that was different. They've always fought. Sasuke knows all about the rabid animal inside, the piece of a person that snarls and spits at the world, and he knows that sometimes the only way to talk is by fighting. When he used Chidori, that was just the next line of an argument.

Beside Naruto, Sakura shrugs. "You're right that technically you're a missing-nin, but Naruto's right that it doesn't matter. I told you in Konoha that we don't care. You never betrayed us -- yes, you left, but you tried to keep me safe and you let Naruto live instead of following Itachi's path."

Sakura's a little different from him and Sasuke -- Naruto's not quite sure what she has chained up inside, but he's pretty sure it's more complicated than just anger and hatred -- but she's part of him the same way Sasuke's part of him. Naruto knows most people don't see the world the way he does, where everything's a straight path once you make a choice; Sakura helps him make sense out of the weird things people do when they can't see how to change things. He has to show people how to believe, how to change, but she doesn't have to fight people to make them listen to her.

Sasuke snorts and folds his arms, the way he does when he can't think of a good response but wants to pretend that he's quitting because you're stupid. They're wearing him down. Sooner or later he gonna have to admit he was wrong, and he's stronger with them than he is alone.

Naruto kicks Sakura's ankle, folds his arms in a mockery of Sasuke, and grins at her. She winks in response. 'Point for us,' she mouths.

"I can still read lips," Sasuke says.

Sakura sighs theatrically. 'You can give the shinobi a target...'

"But you can't make him strike," Naruto finishes out loud, unfolding his arms. Yeah, Sasuke's getting better, but he really needs to work on his sense of humor. He still hasn't realized that they're teasing him.

He pushes his chair back from the table and stands. "Come on, let's go talk to the bartender and get out of here. I wanna see if old man Tazuna knows where to buy a boat."

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