Adult-FanFiction.org : Naruto

Sector Five	By : FlairForTheVeil Category: Naruto AU/AR > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 2292 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor its characters. Rightful ownership belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. I make no profit of this fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 19
- 20
- 21
Chapter 19: Grey Matter
He laid on his left side for what seemed like the first time in forever, staring at the small sliver of light that came through the bottom of his door. It hit his table and the very crease where the wall met the floor, making the white walls appear grey.
The pillow cloth felt unnatural against his face, as did the air pockets of his mattress against his body. It fit comfortably against his body and, yes, he appreciated it, but there was something he’d never get over about simply laying on hard ground with nothing more than a few blankets and perhaps an extra one to use as a pillow.
But still, after over twenty-four hours without any shuteye and a total of a two-hour nap and a hearty meal, he could not fall asleep. For all the wishing for slumber he had done within the past day, it was ironic that his eyes wouldn’t close shut no matter how hard he tried to. It was like they disobeyed his neurological commands, remaining open for a robot that wouldn’t roll in or a scout that would never sneak inside.
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Sasuke’s eyelids fluttered in his short-lived slumber, his head resting sideways against the back of his seat and a blanket being held under his chin. It was mostly quiet in the vehicle, its motor completely silent save for the wind hitting its windows and Karin’s loud snoring.
He shifted as Kakashi skimmed over a shallow pot hole, bordering between the line of slumber and consciousness. Their heads bobbed each time the man slowed down or, more often than not, floored the pedal. Hot air flowed in heavily from the vents all around them.
Sasuke frowned when the man ran over a much deeper pot hole, jostling the SUV’s occupants against one another. It knocked Naruto straight on top of him and cause Karin to wake up mid-snore with a choke and a gasp.
He and Naruto’s heads collided painfully with one another and the blond’s torso fell past him, awkwardly crumpling on the window. His elbow was stuffed in Sasuke’s face and Naruto’s shoulder was crammed painfully into his gut, but the boy continued snoring softly and a small string of saliva connected the idiot’s mouth to his knee.
Sasuke groaned once the pain in his gut forced him awake, accompanied by Karin’s garbled curses at Kakashi for his shitty driving. The man chuckled loudly in the front seat and Suigetsu’s body slid loudly in the trunk, his nylon stretcher creating a loud and annoying screech against the leather floor. He had a pounding headache and his cheek hurt from where it had been pressed against the window, and to top it all off, a wet spot had already formed of Naruto’s drool on his knee.
Sasuke grumpily untangled their blankets, cursing himself for even throwing them on in the first place. There was a fold that held both his arm and Naruto’s leg in it, a crumple that the other was sitting on and wouldn’t budge, and an unrecognizable tangle of fleece and cotton. He made the quick decision to yank Naruto up by the shoulders and shove him back into the middle seat. The boy still didn’t wake up, instead grabbing Sasuke’s arm and holding it against his face, whispering something in his sleep and going limp once again. The boy attempted to gently pull his arm back to himself, but to no avail. Naruto simply nuzzled the fleece of his sweater and simultaneously rubbed his drool on it.
Sasuke sighed heavily and narrowed his eyes. He saw the situation exactly for what it was – a one where only one of them could win. Naruto could either cling onto Sasuke’s arm for dear life or he could effectively remove his arms from the dangerous reigns of the blond’s nuzzling.
So, using his left hand to blindly search for the seat lever to his side and preparing the muscles in his right arm for full and pure war, he smirked and looked down into the relaxed face of his friend. He would show the slumbering dumbass what he could and couldn’t grab onto. His fingers ran over the lever and he grabbed onto it, ready for his own success.
However, he only got as far as yanking his arm to himself so that he and Naruto’s foreheads collided again. The other woke up with a yelp, immediately releasing Sasuke’s arm and grabbing his own head. Sasuke grunted and pulled the seat lever anyway.
Unfortunately, Kami decided to express her bad mood on Sasuke. The moment he pulled the leather and Naruto grabbed his own head, Sasuke was pulled slightly toward the other again. Kakashi sped up and hit yet another radical pothole, sending both of them toppling over the lowered seats. The headrests slammed straight Suigetsu’s gut, the boy rising like the dead and gagging.
Meanwhile, Karin screamed as she was airborne and hit her head too hard against the roof of the SUV. Juugo, his neck already being craned under the roof, was knocked unconscious on impact. Kakashi simply tightened his grip on the steering wheel and tensed his body, only hiccupping in his seat and smiling at the ruckus in the back.
Sasuke sighed. He had hit his head on the back window of the vehicle and fallen parallel from Naruto, who had completely flipped over once they hit the pothole and had landed with his head near Suigetsu’s chest. He didn’t even know where his limbs were and which ones hurt. The white-haired boy groaned in pain and held his head in his hands.
“Oh…” he moaned.
It was almost as if Naruto had heard Suigetsu’s words in slow motion. His eyes snapped open and widened within less than a second, fueled by the upset grumble in the other’s stomach. He pushed off with his elbows and dove for the lowered seats crammed onto Suigetsu’s stomach and pushed them forward onto Karin’s body lying horizontally across the seats. She yelled at him and flailed her arm to bang against the back of Kakashi’s seat.
“I’m gonna hurl…”
Kakashi slammed on the breaks, bringing the SUV to a screeching and burning stop and honking loudly. He switched gears to reverse and completely floored the speedometer, popping open the trunk and wincing as his group’s bodies audibly hit the back of his seats, looking through the rearview mirror for a moment and seeing nothing but a flurry of limbs.
Sasuke was innocent, he swore. He even apologized to Kami for acting as a fucked-up vigilante and what he had just done to Naruto. He had just started to get up from his sprawled position in the trunk and was suddenly sent flipping back to his seat, his back hitting the back of Juugo’s seat and sending the large boy into the dashboard. Naruto crashed into him as well and completed their sandwich, their feet painfully digging into the crumpled form of Karin on the floor of the vehicle.
As Karin screeched under him, Naruto paused. He swore his whole life had just passed right by before his eyes, most of it being the forests and of Sasuke’s face. There were a few images and scenes of his parents and his friends sprinkled in there, but… he blinked heavily. Did he just have an out of body experience?
His train of thoughts was crashed by the sound of Suigetsu’s retching out of the back window of the SUV. He winced and rubbed the back of his head. Naruto had been awoken by being slammed into Sasuke’s hard ass head, then had done a complete three-sixty into the back window, smashed his face against it, had a mere few seconds to even process what had happened, and then had done another flip into Sasuke’s bony ass shoulders to hit the back of another damn seat. Now one of the first sounds he heard besides Sasuke’s raspy ass voice was the unpleasant solo of Suigetsu puking just a few feet away from them.
Naruto gasped and quickly leant off of Sasuke, glancing behind himself to make sure he hadn’t hurt the other. Though his friend had a look of pure anger on his face, he knew it wasn’t directed at him. The blond apologized to Karin and stepped off of her back, but not without a few loud cracks and curses from her. He tried to offer help to her but his hands were slapped away in favor of a search for her glasses.
He turned to help Sasuke get out but was only greeted with the sight of his back as he chewed out Kakashi for his driving skills. Naruto scratched the back of his head and shrugged, guessing that they would be here for a while. It seemed like everyone was alive, anyway, save Juugo’s slumped form in the front seat. Poor dude.
He shoved the door open and leaped out, landing heavily on his feet and leaning on the armrest of the door to steady himself. How long had they been driving? And what had even happened? Sasuke followed him out with a fresh wrinkle between his brows, his dark hair disheveled.
Sasuke coughed, his throat becoming accustomed to the frigid cold outside. It had been very warm inside of the car.
Kakashi turned to their small gathering spot, his hands tucked into his pockets as he leaned in their direction. “And that, kids, is why you wear your seatbelts,” he winked. The man turned away slowly and walked towards Suigetsu even more sluggishly.
“’Sas, what happened?” Naruto asked, his lips pursed in confusion.
His friend calmed a bit and glanced at him before looking around at their location. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“The hell…” the blond grumbled to himself and sent Sasuke a suspicious look. Soon, he thought to himself. He’d poke an answer out of the other soon.
Sasuke grunted and scanned his eyes over the area. Nothing was too eye-catching other than the shattered bottle of alcohol on the side of the road. With a dark gray sky, matching pavement, and a dark and deep green forest, there wasn’t much of a sight to offer. He noticed that the other vehicles had stopped as well, the figures of the girls coming towards them as well as Temari and a couple of the adults. His eye twitched as Suigetsu vomiting became audible once again, hesitantly turning around to see Kakashi awkwardly patting the boy on the back. He snorted.
“You kept cuddling up to me.”
Naruto started a bit, sending the other a questioning look. He scowled for a few moments but then tilted his head back as he figured that was Sasuke’s reply. “Well, ya know I need something to hug.”
“With a death grip?” the other looked genuinely irritated. “You wouldn’t let me sleep.”
“Then why didn’t you just push me off or somethin’?” Naruto pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes.
“Like I said already,” Sasuke sighed. “you had a death grip.”
The other crossed his arms, awkwardly laying one on top of the other to stroke his hairless chin. He looked at the ground, raising his brows and wrinkling his chin only to have his eyes slowly and dramatically rest on Sasuke again. “You liked it.”
Sasuke choked on his own saliva, eyes wide. “I did not.”
“You did!” the blond screeched, covering his neck with his hands and doing his best to hide his face behind his fingers. “This luminous skin…” he drummed his fingers on his face. “and these blue eyes are so-“
“You were drooling,” Sasuke snapped, having crossed his arms and tensed his jaw. He sent Naruto a dirty look.
“You two better stop messing around over there and use this as your potty break!” Sakura yelled at them. She was standing next to Suigetsu on the road, who had been given a large bucket to bury his head in. A few of the guys stood away from him in mild disgust, crossing their arms and squaring their shoulders while the girls bravely stood in close quarters to the sick boy.
That comment stopped Naruto midsentence, his face horrified between his fingers and his face tinged a light pink. He cursed to himself. “I’ll get ya next time, dammit…”
“Tch,” Sasuke turned his back to the other and glanced into the woods. Naruto was called over by Sakura, to which he moaned in despair and trudged away from Sasuke, dragging gravel along with the toes of his boots.
He glanced behind himself and smirked as Sakura assigned him the job of holding Suigetsu’s blow bucket while they checked his vitals. He chuckled watching the blond’s facial expressions, accompanied the slump of his shoulders and the pout in his lip. Naruto caught his eye and narrowed his eyes at him playfully, sending him a few warning but false glares. Sasuke smirked as Suigetsu coughed into his arm and groaned, probably exhausted of all the prodding he got himself once he woke up.
Naruto stuck his tongue out at Sasuke and puffed out his cheeks, visibly hurting his cheeks and laughing once the air blew out of his lips. Sasuke smiled softly, his shoulders relaxing as he gave into the inevitable quirk of either side of his lips. It grew into a larger one as Naruto contorted his handsome face to meet the silly one of his crossed eyes and scrunched nose. He snorted, glancing around himself to make sure nobody had seen him laugh, turning back and readying to mouth something to the blond.
Naruto had a boyish grin on his lips, his eyebrows raised high as he waited for some feedback. Sasuke opened his mouth mid-smile, giving away a glimpse of his straight teeth, synchronizing disturbingly well with the sudden heave from the boy below him. Ino pushed him to the ground so that Suigetsu wouldn’t miss the bucket and held him there, telling him that she’d cut his balls off if he moved.
Sasuke shut his mouth and winced. It sure seemed that the girls were really taking over these days, and he had no idea where that had come from. Directly behind the blond stood Temari, previously unseen due to his height advantage. She smirked, nodded to Naruto, and raised her cupped hand to her mouth, opening it and rolling her eyes back into her head quickly as she made lewd bobbing motions.
Oh, Kami. Sasuke’s face heated up and he didn’t bother glaring at her, instead choosing to turn around and walk into the woods. For Kami’s fucking sake… wouldn’t that be considered unprofessional? But what kind of professional was even Temari? It was like she had been teasing him the minute she met him.
He quickly glanced around himself, scanning for any Katons or scouts. The area around him was clear. But the gestures she had made… his mind was filled with vivid of images, of Naruto, Naruto, and Naruto, ones that he knew were far-fetched and hormone-induced. The farthest he had come to seeing the other naked was when he stripped into his blue boxers at night, of which Sasuke would prevent himself from looking any further than that.
Now his mind crept into that direction without his permission, wondering how exactly that scene would play out; the idea itself seemed wild to Sasuke, who would never expect their relationship to take a turn that much and get so far. It was a bad idea to start dwelling on his physical attraction towards Naruto, though, and especially right before he had planned to take a piss. He softly hit his head against the bark of a tree, softly aching from where he and Naruto’s heads had met and from where it had collided with the window of their SUV. Once he calmed down substantially, he glanced behind himself to ensure his own privacy and around himself for safety, and then promptly took care of his business.
He irritably tucked himself back into his briefs and zipped his jeans back up, taking care to focus on the distant sounds of Suigetsu’s heaving and retching instead of his lurking thoughts of Naruto’s body. His diversions were successful and he sighed to himself, pushing off of the tree and slowly heading back to the road.
Thankfully, Temari had engaged in a serious conversation with Kakashi and the other adults. They stood a bit down the road and away from their vehicles, nodding to each other every now and then. Their idle figures were interrupted every few moments when Tsunade would attempt to subtly punch Jiraiya in the back of the head at comments whispered under his breath.
The moment his vision fixed on Gai, he rolled his eyes. Something like pity swelled in his stomach for whoever was graced to ride in the same car as Lee and Gai. That was a pure curse.
Sasuke turned away from them, shaking his head. He reluctantly strolled back over to the small group surrounding Suigetsu, frowning when the rancid aroma of stomach acid assaulted his nose. Fortunately, Naruto’s hands were free and Suigetsu spat in the bucket by his side. Karin stepped forward with a brown vial and a syringe, looking one hundred and ten percent annoyed with everyone around her.
“This is gonna stop the vomiting,” she grumbled, avoiding eye contact with Suigetsu. She crouched down and yanked his left arm up, haphazardly locating a vain and shoving the syringe needle into his inner elbow and quickly administering the medicine to her teammate. Suigetsu groaned.
“Careful,” Sakura mumbled, her arms crossed and her shoulders hunched. “he moans every time before he blows.”
Ino snorted. “You know, that can be taken in two ways.”
Most of the group chuckled around them save for Karin and Suigetsu. Sakura gasped at the inappropriate comment and smacked her friend on the arm, bursting into giggles. “Ino!”
She tilted her head back and laughed loudly, cradling her stomach in her arms. “Whatever, you prude,” she teased. Ino bent over and scrunched her nose, picking up the blue bucket and holding it out to Naruto. “Will you go empty this out?”
“Aw,” the blond moaned, his face contorting into a painful grimace. “Why do I have to be damn pack mule? Why can’t Sasuke do it?”
“You were just standing in front of me at the wrong time,” Ino disclaimed and shrugged, nodding to the bucket in her arms. “the sooner you do it, the faster it’s over.”
Naruto closed his eyes and grabbed the bucket, his eyebrows knotting together. He waddled off with the large bucket, cursing them all under his breath and nearly tripping on the side of the road.
Karin stood and wiped her hands off, scowling straight at Sasuke. “This is your entire damn fault.”
“How is it?”
“You’re the one that put the seats down, right?” she said and waved her small fist in his face. “Right on top of his damn stomach. You’re the one that turned him into a fucking geyser.”
Sasuke raised an eyebrow and calmly tilted his head. “I did put the seats down, but I guess the pothole in the road made it all worse. All of our weight slammed against him.”
“I’ll get you back, Sasuke,” she growled, roughly pushing her glasses higher onto her nose. She glared at him one last time and stomped away to yank Suigetsu to his feet by the arm, groaning and nearly going limp.
Sasuke decided that he had used enough of his social energy, again wanting to rest. He departed from the group and stepped back onto the road, taking his time and listening to each individual crunch of gravel on his boots. Their people were tiring ones, and he hoped that Temari would be willing to put up with them. This was basically their last shot at life itself.
He rounded the side of the SUV that Karin had been in, tapping the window for the doors to unlock and shivering when the cold air slipped under his shirt and over his stomach. He was surprised to see that he wouldn’t be alone in his solitary relaxing time, Juugo’s snoozing form still in the front seat. Well, as long as the tall boy didn’t speak in his sleep, Sasuke wouldn’t mind.
He shut the door heavily behind him and scooted over to his original seat, leaving the seats in their lowered position. He grabbed his own blanket from the mangled pile on the floor, right next to a soft imprint on the back of the passenger’s seat that he knew was where his head been. Sasuke did his best to relax, turning to his corner and hiking his blanket up to his chin. It was his best to conserve warmth as the back door of the SUV was still suspended high in the air and it wasn’t exactly his day to go stomping around in a puddle of vomit to close it.
Sasuke ran his mind over the previous events following that, though, his lips slightly turning up at the memory of his banter with Naruto and his silly faces. He knew that they had a long road to go and Sasuke would be there to experience the rest of the drive, his thoughts racing by in his mind and leaving skid marks.
The door closest to him beeped and swung open. Naruto shoved his head inside and put a hand on his upper thigh, apologizing once he realized that Sasuke was there in the first place. He swung himself rather noisily inside and threw himself into his seat, bouncing on it for a moment before glancing behind himself and tapping Sasuke on the shoulder.
“I know you’re not asleep,” he said. “I’ll forgive you if you go close that door.”
Sasuke growled. “Forgive me for what? I did nothing.”
Naruto scoffed. “You slammed our heads together and made me a victim of the barf bucket! Don’t pretend like you don’t know what you did.”
He threw the blanket off of himself and glared at the other, climbing over the seats and sliding over Suigetsu’s stretcher. He was thankful that the boy hadn’t left any residue and nearly stood to extend his hand out to the window of the door, hunched over slightly. He tapped it and quickly stepped back so the door would close smoothly and slid back into his seat.
Naruto curled his lips. “Thank you, ‘Sas. You’re a perfect friend.”
He grunted and more irritation flooded his veins as the driver’s door and opposite back door opened once again, the vehicle bouncing as three bodies threw themselves inside. Sasuke did his best to turn away from Naruto and hold his blanket to his chin again.
“Oh no!” Karin screeched. “I forgot about Juugo!”
“He’s fine,” Kakashi dismissed with a wave of his hand and started up the SUV, waiting for everyone in front of them to get a move on. “Are you all ready to hit the road again?”
So it was a total of four seconds. It only took four seconds for Sasuke to give up his sleep for the rest of the drive.
Suigetsu clicked his tongue in the back. “Where the hell are we, anyway?”
Kakashi waved his hand in a wide arc. “In the middle of nowhere.”
Karin gasped dramatically at a comment Suigetsu made a few moments later and a sharp smack filled the vehicle, followed by the traditional curses and jabs at each other. Kakashi would yell his two cents in the argument from the front seat, and Naruto twiddled his thumbs beside him and bombarded him with question after question, making a lighthearted joke from time to time.
Only about ten minutes had passed by and Sasuke leant against the seat facing Naruto, nodding every once in a while for what the other had to say. He wanted to get in depth on anything ranging from weapons and plants to medicine and their own friendship.
Sasuke didn’t dare glance in the rearview mirror – he already felt Kakashi’s amused eyes on Naruto and he. He chuckled at an innocent pun the blond had cracked out, smiling as the other laughed at his own joke and quite nearly cried from it.
“Are we there yet?” Suigetsu yelled over Karin’s voice and Naruto’s laughter.
“We have ten more hours to go,” Kakashi chirped, sending the occupants in the back seats a rock-n’-roll sign with his hand.
Sasuke inwardly groaned. Their travel was very much like being trapped inside of a vehicle with people who hadn’t mentally aged past the age of nine, but he wouldn’t deny himself the pleasure of wild conversations with Naruto. After all, they still had a while to go, and he knew that they still wouldn’t have enough time to outtalk each other with a twenty-four hour time window. So he sighed again and stretched his legs in front of him, listening closely to what the blond had to say.
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Sasuke’s body heaved forward for the umpteenth time in the past twenty minutes. His teeth were grinding and his eyes were to the ceiling, his shoulders tensed as he was pushed forward every few moments. Each time it happened, his seatbelt dug painfully into his collarbone and he fixed it only to have it misplaced by Suigetsu’s kicking again.
He had already told Suigetsu to knock it the hell off over ten times, but it seemed more pleasing to the boy to kick the back of Sasuke’s chair and his chair only. The white-haired boy was sprawled out in the back of the trunk, his previous illness seeming to vanish into thin air, his head resting in his arm as he lifted his leg every five to ten seconds and sent Sasuke forward a few inches each time. However, he wouldn’t give in to his desires to knock Suigetsu’s front teeth out; that would be immature and provoking. But even Naruto was becoming irritated now as Sasuke wouldn’t even attempt to speak so that his voice wouldn’t give out every time Suigetsu kicked.
“-that’s the thing about her, is it the blond genes or the red genes that are dominant-“ Naruto was cut off by Sasuke’s body dipping forward and the boy becoming even more unresponsive.
He growled. “Knock it the fuck off, Suigetsu! I’m trying to have a conversation over here!”
“Uchiha ain’t even listening,” the boy slurred, sending Naruto a sleazy grin as he kicked the back of the seat again. “So what’s it to ya?”
Sasuke decided that he had had enough once his seatbelt dug into his neck and quickly unbuckled it, throwing it over his shoulder and turning around in his seat. To him, there was no dodging the mean right hook he had sent flying to Suigetsu’s head, but with his awkward angling and Suigetsu’s vision advantage, he managed to dodge the hit anyway.
Fortunately, Karin had the same idea as him, and her left fist was eagerly awaiting the boy’s temple as he dodged away from Sasuke and towards her. It hit him in the temple with a loud thump and the foot on the back of Sasuke’s seat fell limp with the rest of Suigetsu’s body.
Naruto grunted and nodded. He raised his arms and clapped softly, making sure that she hadn’t killed Suigetsu by accident. Suigetsu looked alive enough, he thought, and grinned widely at Sasuke.
“It’s a good life now.”
He nodded in agreement.
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Sasuke slumped as Naruto’s snores filled his ear, drool falling onto his shoulder once again. The boy had fallen asleep a couple of hours before (perhaps he had talked himself to sleep) and quite literally passed out on the Uchiha, once again holding his arm tightly to his chest and nuzzling him from time to time.
He admitted that once he looked past the wet spot on his shoulder and the tickle of his thick hair on his face and neck, the other wasn’t so bad when he was asleep. Like always, Naruto was warm and calming, but his ridiculous faces were multiplied by ten and Sasuke couldn’t help a small smile come across his face as the boy whispered something about beef.
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He had just been on the verge of unconsciousness when Kakashi braked the vehicle to a sudden stop, their thankfully belted bodies staying where they were but Suigetsu’s body hitting the back of the seats again. Karin woke up with a snort, her glasses flying straight off of her face and hitting the passenger’s seat in front of her. Sasuke merely opened his eyes as Naruto whined and slowly released his arm, his fingers stuck to the sweater for a bit. He sighed and glanced down at the small spot of drool on his shoulder, though he couldn’t bring himself to care too much – it was like this was the norm. Naruto sat up and sighed, rubbing his eyes with the meaty part of his palms.
“Are we there?” he asked Kakashi, blinking heavily and slumping forward in his seat, his only means of support being the seatbelt digging into his chest.
The man grunted as he struggled to look over the rest of the cars, quickly backing up and sending them jolting forward again. “I think we are…” he trailed off.
Naruto groaned and grabbed Sasuke’s blanket straight off of his body, balling it up and burrowing his head inside of it. His body slumped back on his seat again, legs widely spread as he tried to sleep again.
“You know, you might as well wake up,” Sasuke stated, gently tugging his blanket away from Naruto’s face.
“No!”
Kakashi suddenly sped up again, causing their heads to roughly hit their headrests. Sasuke’s teeth clacked together and he glared at the man through the rearview window, although his attention seemed to be diverted on something else. He rolled down tinted the driver’s window to reveal Temari’s face, a cloak draped over her head to protect herself from the wind.
“I don’t think we have enough space for all these cars,” she yelled. “I think we should all just get off and head inside. My men will take care of the parking later.”
Kakashi raised his eyebrows and grasped the back of the glove compartment, turning his body to his passengers. “Did everybody hear that?”
Karin was the only one who grunted her affirmation. Juugo nodded after a few silent, awkward moments as the Sergeant waited for a proper answer. She nodded back and glanced ahead of their vehicle again, her face only partially illuminated by their headlights.
“It might be dangerous out here,” she warned. “just check yourselves and keep your guard up.”
“Katons?” Naruto murmured, letting Sasuke grab his blanket back.
“I’m guessing so.”
Kakashi shut the car down, their last sight of light being the smooth gliding of blue over their windows before everything was pitch black. He opened his own door, letting the emergency lights come on and hurried them out.
“I’ll get Suigetsu,” Juugo offered, the SUV shaking violently once he exited the vehicle. He stalked to the trunk, running his hand along the length of the vehicle and calmly opened the back door, slugging the skinny boy onto his shoulder.
Naruto raised his eyebrows and did his best to stick close to Sasuke’s presence, jumping when Juugo loudly slammed the door of the SUV closed. They were bathed in immediate darkness again, only the sound of Karin sniffling and the sharp wind punctuating their silence. He liked to imagine that they were standing in a circle, but since he could see literally nothing, he figured that it was a stupid idea.
Sasuke nudged him slightly “I might have a flashlight.”
“Then turn it on!” the blond urged, grabbing the other’s shoulder and shaking it violently. “Everything’s black!”
“Are your eyes open?” Sasuke deadpanned, his voice leaking with sarcasm as his hands slid against the denim of his jeans, searching for his pockets.
Naruto grunted. “Of course they are,” he said, blinking and staring in the direction that Sasuke’s voice had come from. He could see small lights in the distance, trembling in the hands of their teammates and taking wild turns.
“Shit, I don’t,” the other grumbled and sighed heavily.
“Then you all best follow my footsteps,” Kakashi ordered, his voice coming from a few feet in front of them. “and stay close to one another. Let’s move.”
“How in the hell does Temari expect us to find our way over there?” Sasuke griped.
“No idea…” Naruto breathed, just barely touching the sleeve of the other’s sweater as they walked forward in a line. Kakashi was evidently following the pink keychain flashlights Jiraiya had stolen from a strip club in an exotic part of a Sector back in his day, Naruto thought. He couldn’t believe that they still lasted, and after the time when he had accidentally left it on overnight when he was twelve.
Karin shushed them, grabbing Sasuke by the wrist and pulling him forward more quickly. “If any of us die, it’s y’all first. I have things to live for.”
“The hell do you have to live for?” Suigetsu had seemingly chosen to wake up just in time to insult Karin. “Spending the rest of your life chasing after Sasuke’s dick?”
That tick he had in his eye from years ago returned right now, Sasuke thought.
“Shut the fuck up, you slimy ass piece of shit!” she spat, a telltale thump emitting from where she had predictably punched Suigetsu in the back. A much louder thump came from the ground by his feet, where he imagined Juugo had simply dropped him.
“Ugh…” the boy groaned, moving his hands on the ground. “Come on, Juugo! I thought we were tight?”
“It was an accident,” the large boy simply dismissed.
“Huh, well, now I know that if I ever got the chance to escape all this shit, I would definitely say yes to the offer since none of you appreciate this.”
Sasuke clucked his tongue as Karin yanked him forward again, gently moving his wrist out of the cage of her hand.
They continued walking in the blistering cold, wind seeming to puncture Sasuke’s thin skin and make most of his face feel numb. He heard Naruto’s teeth chattering together behind him and cursed as the sound made him want to clack his own together. It had been an unbearingly long and cold winter, and Sasuke couldn’t wait for the spring season to come any longer.
Knowing that nobody could see, he puffed out his cheeks and hugged his arms to himself. As ironic as it was, it seemed like the eye of the hurricane, for the last time he had been in this weather it was a blizzard. Now, they were without the insane stress of military officials hot on their tails and right under their noses.
He paused as his leg went a bit lower than the even terrain he was on. Supporting his weight with just his left foot, he lowered his right a bit more, kicking forwards and backwards to test whatever it was. A small hole, but one that could still induce a sprained ankle for one not travelling as calmly and slowly as he was.
Naruto reared up closely behind him and he held his hand out slightly. “Watch your step,” Sasuke murmured. “Go to the right a little.”
The other grunted, trudging after Sasuke and sighing. He was glad to be settling down after they had always been on the mood.
Finally, they approached a circular formation that had gathered around Lee’s two flashlights. Temari was crouching on the ground with her elbow resting on one of her knees, waiting for the last of their group to find their way over. She nodded to Kakashi and Jiraiya placed his large palm on her shoulder, informing her that they were the last members of their group left to come.
“Alright,” she announced, pointing to the ground. “I technically built five more entrances to my property, but this is the one closest to us and also the safest one to use at night. Two more are far away from each other inside the woods, and two more are in our training field half a mile away. When you come out in daylight for the first time, I can’t stress how important it is that you memorize this entrance,” she waved her hand with her last few words. “Okay? There’s a ledge that’ll go down with your weight, and should that ever give out, a ladder in the wall.”
Temari ran her hands over the dry grass and patted the areas around herself, testing for hollowness. She finally encountered a metal bang instead of a soft one into dirt. “This is it, guys,” she called, digging her hands into the ground and using all of her muscle to pull a square of grass out of the land.
What took the entire width of her arms wasn’t just a square, Sasuke noted. She lifted a decidedly large hidden door out of the ground, pushing it forward with all of her strength and grunting as it spread a cloud and a few clumps of dirt around their feet. She swung her legs around herself and jumped inside, another hollow metal pang coming from inside. Her two guards followed her and she yelled to them.
“Max this platform can take is five hundred pounds, so assort yourselves!”
“Ladies first!” Ino screeched and elbowed Kiba out of the way, who had immediately stepped forward, grabbing her friends by the wrists and bringing them to the front of the crowd.
“Why don’t we go by age first?” Shino suggested, holding up a hand.
“Excuse me,” Tsunade snapped. “That is degrading. Not to mention that only some of you know how old you are, anyway.”
“They’ll learn that,” Temari called and stuck her head out of the trap door. “We have ID scanners and weighers so they’ll fix themselves in the future. I’ll call you when the ledge is back up.”
Her odd ponytails disappeared back under the door, a soft humming sound echoing off the walls. A few moments later, she OK’d the next group of members. Ino still dragged Sakura, Tenten, and Karin into the hole, dropping down and landing lightly on the ledge. Their excited chatter was heard even after they reached the bottom.
“Let the lightest go first,” Tsunade suggested. “Suigetsu, Lee, Sasuke, and Naruto, you’re up.”
“What!” Naruto whispered to himself. “You’ve gotta weigh at least a hundred and sixty pounds.”
“I think we’ll find that out soon,” Sasuke replied, stepping forward and glancing inside the door. Surely enough, a rail metal platform was awaiting them. Fluorescent light filled his vision and made him dizzy for a few seconds.
Suigetsu pushed him backwards, squashing uncomfortably between his legs in a provocative manner that left Sasuke all sorts of confused. Lee hollered his acceptance of the challenge and took Sasuke’s look of utter fear as an invitation, grinding their fronts together and shimmying his way onto the ledge. Naruto took advantage of his shock and pushed him inside, leaping in behind him and gasping over the inside of the building.
That… was the most disturbing thing Sasuke had ever experienced. It even topped the multiple times Suigetsu had shamelessly masturbated when they were showering and the dark time when he had seen Kakashi’s balls. Never would he have thought that Lee’s body would be pressed so closely to his, and it made his guts heave in the most unpleasant of ways.
He ignored Naruto when he grabbed his shoulder and shook it violently, instead staring at the ground and attempting to remember what his life had been like before those disturbing events. His mind took a horrifying turn to a memory of Lee running around the camp and yelling “Faster! I must go faster!”
Sasuke clamped a hand over his mouth and leant against the railing of the ledge. Pair the memory with the gentle swaying of this platform and his stomach never felt so weak.
“I know!” Naruto grabbed him by the shoulders again and shook him so roughly that his bangs fanned forward.
He finally raised his eyes and his jaw slackened with awe from the sight in front of him. Sasuke almost thought of the hospital that Naruto had helped him to and Karin treated him in right before they had joined Tsunade’s group.
Temari had never mentioned the size of this place, and this was just the evident infirmary. A couple of white-cloaked women with clipboards in their hands and masks over their mouths glanced at them before returning to various patients lying on beds behind a wall of glass. They entered through doors made completely of glass as well, with an infectious symbol engraved into it. Behind the glass walls were rectangular assortments of curtains, evidently arranged so that each sick patient had their own space. In front of that glass were curtained standard checkup beds with paper rolled over the built-in pillows and seats and more metal beds in cubicles revealed by open curtains, only two of them occupied and closed. It seemed like privacy was a huge thing here. Sinks aligned one wall and eight mini refrigerators were stacked on top of and next to each other, all having their own signs of O, B, AB and A hung on them. Next to them were what seemed like miles-long cabinets of surgical and medical supplies behind locked glass doors.
Karin gasped loudly and gravitated in every which direction she could. Temari offered her a tentative smile and mumbled something in her ear, the girl quickly nodding.
“Checkups for everyone,” Temari called. “I’ll leave you in the hands of my two doctors Yagura and Ozuka. I have business to tend to right now, so when any of you are done, navigate yourselves to the lobby. There’s plenty of space for you all.” She nodded and glanced behind them as more members entered. “And thank you for joining my force. I’ll see all of you tomorrow,” she cast them a lose salute and was whisked off by her two guards through a door on the opposite side of the room, both of them muttering into the walkie-talkie like devices on their shoulders.
Now the atmosphere felt oddly tense as confusion without authority ran over the teenagers. Yagura, a tall woman with her hair cropped short and parted in the middle, stepped out of the glass doors and discarded of her rubber gloves.
“Please, those who have pressing or immediate medical issues step forward,” she asked, her dark hair shiny under the fluorescent lights.
Ino stepped from the crowd, dragging an irritated Konohamaru to the doctor by his ear. His right arm was slung neatly in an efficient homemade sling. The doctor shooed him to an examination table and the young boy disappeared behind the blue curtain, slowly closing it and sending a menacing glare to the blonde who had forced him into the hands of another medical freak.
Karin stepped forward and tugged Naruto and Suigetsu away from Sasuke’s sides, a predatory glint in the lens of her glasses.
“I’m not even hurt!” Naruto protested, doing his best to brush away her hand knotted in his shirt. She tugged the back of his blue shirt up and patted the thick bandages lining a deep gash on the left side of his back.
His shoulders slumped and he sent Sasuke a wittingly miserable look, dragging his heels across gray tiles into a cubicle and quickly sliding its curtain closed.
“That’s all,” Ino said. “though a lot of us have burns from Sector Tasers.”
“Then those of you with burns are fine, but all of you must stand by for a booking,” Dr. Yagura announced. “You can go to the lobby if you’d like, but for every one of you that leaves, another must come back until all of you have been recorded.”
The teens nodded their understanding and spread out, a few of them warily heading outside the door that Temari had left from and some choosing to loiter around the entrance of the building. Tsunade stepped forward and offered her helping hand, to which Yagura accepted.
To some of the group, it was painfully normal to see Tsunade in a long white coat and paper mask again. It was new to Sasuke, as he had only barely known that Tsunade was the best physician in Konoha before the eviction. She held a clipboard with a thick pile of papers barely held by the clasp, a pen spinning in her hand.
She slapped the cuff of her glove against her wrist and raised her eyebrow at Sasuke, motioning for him to come to her with her index finger. He grudgingly stepped forward and made his way to an open examination table, Tsunade following closely behind him.
He rested on the firm plastic of the table, the thin layer of paper on it crackling under his weight. Tsunade closed the curtain behind her, turning on a bright white lamp straight into Sasuke’s eyes.
“Sorry,” she said, crouching down and rummaging through built-in drawers under the table. He rubbed his eyes to witness her bring out two vials and a needle, setting a few other items on the ground.
“Blood sample, weight and height, dental examination, and then body map. That’s all.”
Sasuke nodded and rolled up his sleeve, already accustomed to this procedure. He didn’t fail to notice that the last time he had his blood taken, Itachi was tensely standing by his side and quite literally hovering over Karin while she did. He didn’t take the time to revel how much had changed within the span of twenty-four hours, instead frowning when Tsunade wrapped a rubber tie above his elbow painfully tight.
“I know,” she said. “but the faster it’ll come out and the lesser you think you’ve lost.”
She pushed a needle into his vein, quickly changing syringes and holding a tube to collect his blood in. Surely enough, it heavily and quickly dripped into the tube, nearly black and in large beads. She continued until it was three-fourths full and switched tubes, only filling the second one halfway. His wrist was already tingling after a few seconds and she quickly plugged the syringe, removing the needle from his vein and slapping a bandage right above the puncture sight. Tsunade moved away to cap both of his samples, jotting down his name on the tape labels.
Sasuke calmly removed the bandage and placed it over the small bead of blood that had formed inside his elbow, pressing the middle of it down to absorb the blood. He watched her with tired eyes as she filed them into a tube rack and jotted a few things down onto her paper.
“B negative, right?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Alright,” Tsunade grunted and nodded for him to step on the weighing scale she kicked out from under the table. “Let’s see how much the mighty Uchiha has on him.”
Sasuke made a disapproving face, toeing his boots off and nudging them to the side. He stepped on the scale and turned to Tsunade, who raised her eyebrows.
“You’re underweight, for all the fuss about it. And you’ve grown. See? Underweight,” she barked, not actually showing him any proof. Her amber eyes moved back to his face, silently ordering him to sit back down.
In all honesty, he was actually feeling a bit lightheaded. Combine the exhaustion, irritation, being thrown into a new environment and his overreaction about two small tubes of blood, and he would nearly pass out on a doctor’s table under a blaring white light. Tsunade used one hand to poke at his teeth as she mapped out his molars.
The dental process took maybe twenty minutes, but Sasuke’s judgment wasn’t exactly trustworthy at the moment. He hazily wondered what his own teeth looked like.
“Alright,” Tsunade used her same, authoritative tone of voice again. “Take off your clothes.”
Sasuke’s eyes opened, staring at her as he relinquished the feel of his sweater on his chest. “What?”
“Take off your clothes,” she looked at him like a dumbfounded parent to a child. “We’re doing a body map.”
He eyed her warily, slowly sitting up so that his biceps strained. “All of them?”
“No, I’m going to draw your underwear as a birthmark. Yes, all of them, Sasuke, most preferably within the next day.”
The teen sent her a weak glare, sliding off of the table. He guessed that now was not the same time; he was a subject to her teasing. But this made him plain uncomfortable, knowing that he would see this woman for every day as long as either of them lived, knowing what his body was like… naked.
“Yes, I’ve seen all you runts in your birthday suits,” she deadpanned. “I actually delivered a lot of your friends. Again, the sooner you do it, the sooner it’s over.”
Kami, Sasuke had known Tsunade was old, but not that old. She must have had some illegal Sector youth serum to look the way she did. Either way, Sasuke reluctantly and slowly pulled both of his arms through his sweater and tugged it over his head, the muted slapping sounds of Tsunade’s gloves against her skin nearly making goosebumps rise along his neck. He folded the garment in half two times and laid it neatly on the table behind him, moving to the buttons of his jeans and undoing both of them, tugging his zipper out of them and stepping out of his jeans.
Along with his jeans came with the uprise of the hairs on his body. He couldn’t believe that, besides his mother, father, and brother who had bathed him when he was a child, an old woman was the first one to see him naked. This was yet another thing that would keep Sasuke up at night, he thought, tugging his jean leg off his foot.
“What are you stalling for?” Tsunade chuckled. “Do you want me to close my eyes?”
Sasuke willed down a flush of anger and tugged his briefs off, kicking them to the side along with his jeans. Now he stood naked as the day he was born in front of Tsunade, the sixty-something doctor who shamelessly hit on Jiraiya in the most discreet of ways. He almost shivered as the crisp air in the infirmary hit his personals and stared at a crease in the blue curtain behind her. This whole day had done nothing but disturb him.
She approached him, to which he did his best not to revolt at. Tsunade gently touched the scar tissue on his shoulder and collar bone, neatly sketching the scar on a silhouette of a body on her paper. She checked for moles on his arms and chest, both of which Sasuke knew he already had none of, and backed away to inspect his lower regions. The dread in him had already left a few moments ago – now, he remained disturbed and felt like a family of worms had made their way into his stomach.
Tsunade chuckled and marked a scar on his hip and upper thigh. Now the hairs on the back of Sasuke’s neck stood on end and he fought the muscles in his face threatening to morph into a horrified one. “What the hell is so funny?”
“Have some more respect for your elders,” she scolded and raised a fair eyebrow at him, leisurely spinning her pen between her fingers. “You’re pale as a corpse.”
He sighed and reluctantly obliged when Tsunade motioned for him to turn around. At least he wouldn’t have to face those judgmental, prying eyes now.
“You have a mole on your left buttock.”
Sasuke mentally groaned and wished to be clothed again. This experience was scarring. However, the only physical portrayal of his distress was the slight twitch in his fingers by his sides.
“Okay, okay, you’re done,” Tsunade sighed and scribbled loudly on her paper. “Hurry it up.”
Sasuke tugged his underwear and pants on in one movement, quickly zipping up, buttoning, and shrugging his sweater back over his head. It only took him a couple of long strides to reach the curtain and quite nearly rip it off the hinges. He was grateful to Kami that the process was completed within a little over five minutes, sighing once he reached the open space again. When Kiba strolled behind Tsunade’s curtain, he felt no pity whatsoever.
Now he glanced to his left, the curtain around Naruto’s cubicle drawn closed. His voice was drifting out from it, muffled, calm and steady. Sasuke frowned at not having him by his side to view what Temari had called the “lobby”, but he guessed the other would be able to see it later.
Sasuke ducked out of the exit door, a large, wooden floor expanding in front of him. On either side of him were two more rooms, their doors closed. Various men and women milled around him, entering those doors with electric keypads and some of them pushing past him into the infirmary. They all regarded him with wary looks, all of them seeming to wear the same uniform, or at least range of colors. Most of the men wore black pants and a luminescent shirt of a material that he’d never seen before, a telltale of stolen Sector articles. Women wore the same attire, a few of them opting to wear a spandex-like material under skirts, but all of them wearing the same military issue combat boots.
Sasuke moved forward, glancing around himself for a teammate, anybody he knew – but he couldn’t see anyone over the sea of black-clad, moving bodies. Irritation bubbled up in his chest and a woman apologized to him for bumping into his shoulder, to which he nodded his okay.
Finally, a shock of silver hair rose over the crowd of chattering soldiers and Sasuke weaved towards that head. As he neared, he could finally see Kakashi’s stature and the pleased expression on his face, chatting with a stout man leaning on a metal basket.
“Sasuke, you made it,” Kakashi greeted. He was clad in a black material and open olive vest that reminded him of the green jumpsuits Gai and Lee wore, though it was, er, more conservative, and had had the texture of scales.
“Welcome,” the man next to him said, pushing his glasses higher on his nose and grinning. It was an unwelcomed reminder of Kabuto, though this man’s glasses were not round. He scanned his eyes over Sasuke’s body, evidently calculating his sizes and nodding to himself. “I’ll get your articles of clothing and room immediately.”
Sasuke raised an eyebrow as the man jogged to the opposite side of the lobby, travelling with much more speed than he would expect a man of that weight. He turned to Kakashi and sent him a questioning look.
“These are neat,” the man offered, slapping the bodysuit against the skin of his forearm. “Very comfortable.”
“I can see why you and Gai are such good friends now.”
Kakashi chuckled slowly, narrowing his eyes down to him. “Watch your mouth. He just might come if you summon him.”
“Here you go,” the man returned with a small plastic bag, pair of issued boots, and box in hand. “Wing 9 is accessible by the platform over there…” he placed a hand on Sasuke’s shoulder and pointed to a platform lined in warning tape. “Evens on the right, odds on the left. Please, make yourself comfortable, and welcome!”
Sasuke opened his mouth to ask a question but was actually pushed towards the platform surrounded by security cones, glancing behind himself to send a skeptical look to the man. He was already jogging away again as Kiba and a few others of his group surrounded Kakashi.
Sasuke glanced down at the plastic bag in his arms, containing the same black jumpsuit that Kakashi had been flaunting. He narrowly avoided bumping into a burly man two full heads taller than him, apparently headed in the same direction as him. A few people were rising to the floor, stepping off before the platform even leveled with the wooden floor. The large man hopped on – he was easily over two hundred pounds, Sasuke noticed and stepped next to him.
The man pulled an orange lever and they were lowering to the next floor, standing in an awkward silence. The man crossed his meaty arms and tucked his chin into his chest, staring at Sasuke from the corner of his eye and nodding his head to the creaking of the platform.
Strange, Sasuke thought, tucking his jumpsuit under his arm and opening the small blue box in his hand. All that was in it was a key with a crude paper label taped onto it, reading W9-78. He gingerly took the bronze key out and turned it over, frowning when he realized how easy it would be to lose.
They reached the ground and the man hopped over the railing of the platform, jogging into one of the corridors in front of him. The area in front of him looked much like a hotel, except that the doors had machine engraved numbers on them, and that hotels did not have laser IDs attached to the ceiling and guns behind closed glasses instead of fire extinguishers. The IDer shone its bright blue light into his pupil and he blinked, aggravated.
“Sasuke Uchiha,” a simulated voice spoke softly. He glanced above his head and waited for more – nothing. He warily stepped into the thin hallway, nothing but a small piece of discarded paper lying on the ivory carpet. It was almost as if either side of the corridor threatened to close in on him, glancing on either side as if all of the doors would open at once and this would all be some sort of twisted joke.
The teen continued forward as the numbers escalated and escalated, voices softly heard behind a few of them. It seemed to be a less populated portion of the so-called rooms. Pressing his ear against a few of them proved that. Sasuke continued forward into the fifties, then sixties, and finally, seventies.
Harshly imprinted numbers of W9-76 stood out to him and he finally reached what he guessed what was his door. Sasuke dug the key from his pocket and unlocked the door, letting it silently open into the room. Lights inside automatically turned on, illuminating a partial cement and carpet floor. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.
The room was surprisingly big, most of it empty space. To his left, a wooden table and two chairs rested against the wall, smelling freshly of sandpaper. A long mirror was hanging on the wall further to his left, of which he could see his reflection in. A marble counter jutted from the wall. Sasuke stepped closer to the mirror and inspected himself for the first time in a while and recognized his own pale and clear complexion, noting that he needed a haircut. He moved his bangs out of his face and was surprised to see his unbruised cheekbones and eye, a butterfly closure lying above his eyebrow. His lips were chapped and his ears were red from the cold. It was all a reassuring sight until his eyes reached the prominent bruises on his neck, partnered with the crescent of Kimimaro’s nails.
Sasuke turned away from the mirror and faced the rest of the room. A small dresser was lined against the wall and he opened one of its drawers, sighing and shrugging out of his sweater once again. For what Karin would call sentimentality, he folded the gray sweater in two halves again and tucked it into the corner of the first drawer, followed by his jeans. He opened the second drawer to find a pair of soft sleeping pants and white shirt. He made it a mission to himself to find the running water in this place and shoved his own boots and socks in the drawer, quickly changing into the pajamas and ditching the jumpsuit. He sent a longing glance to the soft twin bed on the opposite wall and grabbed his key off the drawer again, slipping out of the door and into the hallway.
He glanced down the rest of the hall that led into the hundreds, moving his hand along the wall as he strolled away. Surely enough, what seemed to be a locker room awaited him and he stared at the swiveling metal door.
Sasuke thanked Kami for the chance to be clean again and moved his palm to shove on the door before pausing. Wait, was this the girl’s locker room? If it was, he really wasn’t up for a punch as mighty as Karin’s should he walk in on the women. He figured that since there was only one, this must be a male wing of the building, and slowly pushed the door open.
The hissing of showers greeted his ears and he was delighted to hear that only one other man was showering behind a curtain. Shower heads reached over cement separations of stalls, all lined with white curtains. On the wall to his right was a shelf of fresh towels and a bucket of used ones, grabbing a plush towel. He made his way over to a shower stall and snapped the curtain open, quickly undressing himself and throwing his clothes to hang over the wall. He learned that as soon as he turned the nozzle on, the water was already warm, something that screamed stolen Sector technology to him. But he didn’t mind.
Sasuke grabbed the small bottle of shampoo and soap off of the wall and hurriedly poured a copious amount over his head, scrubbing his scalp with all the little energy he had. It smelled of peppermint and something told him that it wasn’t exactly a man’s shampoo, but he could care less. His hair felt much lighter as some blood ran down the drain between his feet, some amounts of his hair falling out due to stress. He wasn’t surprised.
He dipped his head back into the water, letting it cascade over his shoulders and down his body. The butterfly closure remained intact on his face and he glanced down to the bottle of generic soap in his hand. It had been a while since he’d had the chance to clean his body.
Squirting a generous amount of body wash onto his hands, he voluntarily washed away what he could of Kimimaro’s disgusting sweat and blood of his body; the newfound pain and loss of Itachi going down the drain with dried blood and dirt. To him, it was almost like starting a new beginning every time he bathed. He vowed himself to do his best to stop all confusion towards Naruto and act with his heart like the other did so often, having read that doing so would bring him relief and happiness.
He rubbed his foot against his leg and sighed, jumping when the other occupant of a shower turned his off. He rubbed at his body for the second time, pressing harshly against his skin and nearly wishing that almost all of it would wash away.
Relieved, Sasuke stood facing the spray of the shower and turned the nozzle off, watching as it diminished to a leak and the last of the hot water slid over his calves and ankles. He grabbed his towel off of the wall, quickly drying off and stepping into his clothes once again. He felt refreshed and, most importantly of all, clean. For once he didn’t smell faintly of dried sweat, blood, dirt, or a combination of the three. It was definitely new to smell slightly of mint and some kind of woody scent.
He stepped out and toweled his hair out again, quickly discarding of his towel in its designated bucket and exiting the shower rooms. He strolled to his door and brought out his key, easily unlocking the door. Again, the lights automatically turned on, a problem that Sasuke noticed had arisen. It was easily solved when he noticed a wheel to the right of his door that turned the lights to various levels of brightness.
He toed off his boots, leaving them next to each other by the door. Sasuke made way to the bed with a large pillow resting on top of its simple white sheets. Knowing that nobody was there to witness them, he allowed himself to fall forward on top of the mattress, lightly bouncing.
The sheets were soft and tickled his face. He rolled over onto his back and threw his arm over his eyes, sighing as the soft material pressed against his back. It felt heavenly to lie on a bed, and one that was predictably meant to be his own, not one in a house that he had broken into to search for food or water.
He stood up slowly and pulled the covers back, moving back to his door and shutting the lights off. Sasuke finally slid into the bed, tucking his legs under the sheets.
He laid on his left side for what seemed like the first time in forever, staring at the small sliver of light that came through the bottom of his door. It hit his table and the very crease where the wall met the floor, making the white walls appear grey.
The pillow cloth felt unnatural against his face, as did the air pockets of his mattress against his body. It fit comfortably against his body and, yes, he appreciated it, but there was something he’d never get over about simply laying on hard ground with nothing more than a few blankets and perhaps an extra one to use as a pillow.
But still, after over twenty-four hours without any sleep and a total of a two-hour nap and a hearty meal, he could not fall asleep. For all the wishing for slumber he had done within the past day, it was ironic that his eyes wouldn’t close shut no matter how hard he tried to. It was like they disobeyed his neurological commands, remaining open for a robot that wouldn’t roll in or a scout that would never sneak inside.
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Sector Five