Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

Grounded	By : djserani Category: Naruto > Het - Male/Female Views: 2818 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, and I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 14
- 15
- 16
When Neji approached Kakashi later, he was already awake. “I’m up, thanks,” he said quietly. Neji nodded and made his way to Hinata. Kakashi had spent the last several minutes trying to figure out how to get out from under Sakura without waking her up. He still hadn’t come up with anything.
There was nothing for it, he’d have to just move her. When he managed to get out from under her, she curled into a ball in the middle of where he’d just been laying. He stopped long enough to tuck the blanket around her before standing up.
He glanced around the camp and noted that everyone was in pretty much the same position as they’d been the night before. He chuckled to himself, then stepped outside the camp area. After making sure that no one was nearby, he settled down against the tree, next to Shikamaru.
“Yo.”
“Hey.” Shikamaru was staring, as usual, at the stars.
Kakashi pulled out his Icha Icha volume and opened it. “So, we all know you’re not really reading that, why do you bother?” Shikamaru’s lazy voice drifted over his book.
Kakashi looked over his book at him, raising his eyebrow. Then he shrugged. “Force of habit.”
Shikamaru chuckled, then said, “um, not that it’s my place, but it might look kind of bad on Sakura if you’re still reading those so much while you’re dating her.”
Kakashi paused at that. “Why?”
Shikamaru glanced up at him. “They’re generally accepted to be hentai. Whether they are or not,” he said when Kakashi would interrupt him, “that’s what’s thought of them.” He didn’t finish the thought, but Kakashi caught the meaning.
He’d never considered that. He—and now Sakura—knew what the books really were. But not everyone did. He sighed and tucked his book back into his pouch.
“I doubt she’ll be bothered by it, especially after the other night.” Kakashi raised an eyebrow at this. “You were on first watch and some things are just too easily heard late at night in the forest.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, it’s not really any of my business.”
“Well, thanks. I hadn’t thought about it.” He glance up at the sky. The stars were already fading. Dawn wasn’t too far off.
“For the record, I thought Lee was out of line,” Shikamaru said after a while.
“I’m sorry?” Kakashi said.
“The other night. When he asked about Sakura. It’s none of our business. It’s enough for someone to take a chance in our kind of world. They shouldn’t be questioned about it.”
Kakashi knew he was thinking of Kurenai and Asuma. “I appreciate that.” He fell silent again for a moment. “It was a valid question, though.”
“Hell no, it wasn’t.”
Kakashi’s eyebrow went up again. “Oh? It wasn’t?”
“No. Look, we know you didn’t force her. So, obviously, it’s her choice. Anything else is none of our business.” And with that, Shikamaru went back to his stargazing and Kakashi found he no arguments.

Just before dawn, Kakashi squatted next to the mat and traced his fingers over Sakura’s face. She opened her eyes and smiled up at him. “Yup. Could definitely get used to seeing that.”
He couldn’t help but smile back. “Morning. Time to get moving.”
She sat up and stretched and Kakashi busied himself at his pack so he didn’t spend too much time looking at her. He needed to be focused today and that meant he could not spend a lot of time looking at Sakura’s body.
When he turned around, she had the mat and blanket rolled. She tied it up and turned to him and he got the pleasure of seeing her shocked expression.
He held the small metal pot and bag of tea leaves out to her, but instead of taking them, she nearly knocked him over, throwing her arms around him in a huge hug. “Oh gods, I love you.” She gave him a big smacking kiss on the outside of his mask and snatched the pot and tea leaves out of his hand.
She grabbed her canteen and dumped water in the pot, setting it close to the fire right away. Then, she sat down next to it and waited for it to brew.
“Totally not fair,” someone murmured in his ear. He glanced over to see Shikamaru standing there. Kakashi just raised an eyebrow. “None of us can do anything like that for our women.”
“None of your women are quite so dependent on caffeine.”
Shikamaru gave his half smile. “Point taken.”
“She drinks a ton of it at the hospital, and when she’s not on a mission, she practically lives there, so…” He gave a half-shrug. “When we are on missions, she usually packs her own, but forgot this time. I wonder why…”
Shikamaru snickered. “Well, I think you just earned some serious brownie points with her for that one.”
“Think so?”
“Oh, yeah, I think so,” he said and they both watched as she took the first few sips. Her eyes were closed, her hands cupped around the small pan as if she were performing a ritual, not just drinking tea.
“Hm.” Was all Kakashi could say. He went over to her and squatted next to her. “Will it do?”
“Oh gods, yes. Thank you.” She smiled up at him and it seemed that this small thing cleared up a few of the shadows in her eyes. She offered him the pot and he started to refuse. She looked so happy, though, he couldn’t turn her down, and so took a single drink before giving it back to her.
“You’re welcome.” He kissed her forehead, made sure their stuff was packed and turned to the group. “Okay, with any luck, we’ll find them today. If they’ve got any brains, they know we’re trailing them by now. They’re likely to try to split us up. Try not to allow them to get you down past groups of two.”
He leveled a look at each of the women. “I’m going to be blunt. Even if you’ve got experience, rape isn’t any more pleasant.” Several people blushed, including a couple of the guys. “Stay with someone. Because as good as you are, so are they. And if you find yourself alone against more than one of them, things will get ugly very, very quickly.”
He paused as Sakura stood up next to him. He glanced at her once, then gave his attention back to the group. “Neji and Hinata, I want you in front.” They each nodded once. “Sakura and I will guard the rear. Tenten and Temari—you have ranged attacks. Stay toward the outside and be ready.”
“One more thing,” he said as the last packs were straightened. “Don’t be a hero. Every single person here has a vested interest in getting home alive and in as few pieces as possible. The person next to you is counting on it.” His hand tightened around Sakura’s briefly before he let go. “Move out.”
Hinata and Neji took off first. One by one, they took to the trees and when Sakura and Kakashi were sure everyone else was ahead of them, they took off, too.
There was no conversation today. They were on full alert, waiting for some sign of the rogue-nin. About an hour down river, they weren’t disappointed. Neji and Hinata stopped and dropped from the trees.
When the others caught up, they saw that both had their Byakugan activated. “Across the river. Ten of them in a camp. Two set up as sentries about a hundred meters outside of the camp itself and another two, fifty meters beyond that. Fourteen total.”
“Shikamaru,” Kakashi called and Shikamaru stepped through. “We’ll need a plan.”
Shikamaru nodded. “Ino, Chouji.” When they stepped forward, he turned to them. “I need a layout.”
Ino nodded. She glanced up and when she found her target, turned to Chouji. He stepped behind her, she made the hand signs, and her body slumped into his arms. A few seconds later, a large black bird above them cawed, circled, and flew away.
* * *

Ino opened her eyes, squeezed Chouji’s hand and squatted in front of Shikamaru. She cleared the leaves in front of her, picked up a stick and drew a rough layout of the camp for him in the dirt. “Based on the way they’re laying around the camp, they’re not expecting anything, even though they’ve got sentries. I saw five with obvious weaponry, but two of the sentries were under the trees and I couldn’t see them without raising suspicion.”
She used the stick to indicate several points around the camp. “Three basic swords, one a ridiculously huge hammer—he must be compensating for something,” she snickered, then glanced over her shoulder at Chouji, who blushed. “And one sword that looked particularly nasty. They were too far away to make out headbands. The terrain here and here are dead flat. Trees along each side and near the river.” She pointed to the main camp and the area in front of it. “There’s a sheer cliff on either end, probably why they chose this site. The back end is open to the River Country.
“The first two patrol the river’s edge. Crossing without being seen won’t be easy. The second set of patrols is here, where the cliff faces get closer together. The camp sits behind there.” Ino sat back and looked up at Shikmaru.
Kakashi looked over the map. “I know this area pretty well. The passage between the cliffs is very narrow, but opens up to a large field. Nothing but tall grass for miles.” Then he looked back up at Ino. “Tell me about the sword.”
Ino thought carefully about it. “It was very long, almost as tall as the man who had it.” She drew a crude picture of it in the dirt. “It looked almost like an overgrown fillet knife. The handle looks to be made for two hands, the hilt wide and thin. But the worst part is the blade, starts out narrow and widens just a bit here.” She pointed to a spot about two-thirds of the way down the blade. “Then it curves up here into a wicked-looking point.”
Kakashi stared at the drawing a little more. “Shikamaru, do you know that sword?”
Shikamaru nodded. “Yeah, and that’s not good news. Give me a few minutes.” He closed his eyes and put his hands together.

* * *

Takumi paused mid-step. He could have sworn he heard something. It was impossible, of course. He would have seen someone cross the river. There was nowhere to walk along it. And they were surrounded by sheer cliffs.
Animal or something. I’ve been out here too long, I’m getting jumpy. He stretched, turned and started walking again.
He didn’t see where the kunai came from. He would have sworn that there was absolutely nobody and nothing near him. One moment, it was as quiet as it had been all night. The next, he was pinned to the tree, the kunai through the shoulder of his shirt. It just barely missed his flesh.
“Damn, I missed.” Came the soft voice.
“You never miss, Tenten.” Another voice replied.
“Of course, I don’t. It was a joke, Lee,” Tenten said.
“Oh, well, then you did very well. You did not need to harm him anyway, until we are sure if he is who we are looking for,” Lee added.
Takumi pulled on the kunai, but was having a hard time getting it out of the tree. “I would not do that, if I were you,” Lee’s voice warned him.
A young man in a god-awful green jumpsuit and a beautiful woman emerged from the trees that butted up against the base of the cliff. The woman held several more kunai in one hand and a fistful of shuriken in the other. She had an enormous scroll on her back.
“Who are you?” Takumi asked. But he knew. He knew the symbol on their headbands. He may not have known their full names, but their village was enough.
The woman smiled and his blood chilled. “The question is, who are you?”
Takumi swallowed. “I’m just a guy.” Stupid, he thought to himself. They can see your headband.
“Right.” The woman turned and called behind her. “Temari, I think this one should be for you.”
Temari? No. It can’t be… But Takumi was soon to find out that yes, in fact, it was. Temari of the Sand, the sister to the Kazekage of his former village, was floating down from the cliff on her fan to land in front of him. Oh, shit.

* * *

The man in front of her was a recent defect from the Sand. He was short, with a round face still sporting some of his baby fat. He didn’t even have any peach fuzz on his chin. His blue eyes showed his terror at seeing her in front of him.
She’d seen him around the village, known him to be a bit of a troublemaker, but otherwise a fairly decent shinobi. So, she was having trouble reconciling why he was there in front of them, camping with this group.
“Takumi. I’d say it’s nice to see you again, but I think, under the circumstances, you know better than that.”
Takumi nodded several times. Temari was trying not to have pity on him. She walked slowly toward him. “What are you doing with these guys? Don’t you know better than to fall in with the wrong crowd? You’re headband’s not even scratched yet.” She ran her finger across it, the symbol of Sunagakure still whole.
Takumi swallowed. What could he say? He’d run away. He was marked for death. It was stupid. He’d been promised respect, more responsibility. He’d been promised a position in a new village. And he should have seen through it.
He looked away from her. “By all rights, I should execute you right now.” She spoke quietly. “And I don’t have the power to forgive you.”
She paced away from him, turning her back on him. “Were you part of the rape, Takumi?”
“No!” The vehemence in his response was too much to be ignored. Temari closed her eyes and sent up a prayer of thanks. Then she hardened her expression and turned around. Takumi was pale. And angry. Temari simply raised an eyebrow and waited. He swallowed again. “I did not rape anyone.” He looked down again. “I did steal some of the food. But I took no part in the burning or the rape. I refused.” His mouth twisted. “That’s why I’m out here on guard duty.”
Temari nodded. She walked back to him. “I will give you a choice. I can arrest you, and, when this is over, return you to Suna where you will face my brother, allowing him to decide what to do with you.”
Takumi stared at her. “Or?”
“Or I have to execute you now.” It took everything in her to harden her face when she said that. She prayed he’d choose the former.
“Arrest me! Please! Even if the Kazekage orders my death…just…give me the chance,” he pleaded with her.
Temari sent up a prayer of thanks, though her face didn’t show it. “Very well. Wait here. We have other business here, but I will be back for you. If you’re not here when I return, the offer is rescinded, I will hunt you down myself and I will kill you. Myself. Do you understand me?”
Takumi nodded vigorously. “Yes.”
“Good.” She patted his face and turned back to Tenten and Lee. “Let’s go.”
She grinned when she heard Lee say to Tenten, “Remind me not to get on her bad side.”
- 14
- 15
- 16
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