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Teamwork 2	By : Askerian Category: Naruto > Threesomes/Moresomes Views: 2099 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
:is alive!:

-I don't
write fast. It's pretty obvious. Also, this half of a chapter is 60 pages long. I planned the whole thing
(a and b) to be around 30 pages total, but like hell it listened to me. :shakes
fist at it: Stupid bunnies. Point being :
a hundred thanks to everyone who sent me comments on the fic,
and asked politely about the fic's status. I'm
sorry I suck and didn't reply to everyone. ;.; There's a "Teamwork
status" section in my profile now, please check it out when you're
wondering where's the next part.

To everyone who yelled at me to hurry up, I'mma gonna
start bitchslapping you if you keep that up. I write
because I feel like it and post because I want to share with the nice readers,
not because I'm you whiny entitlement brats' writing slave, thanks. :D

-Yeah, I'm
aware that my Sakura is very much not current canon!Sakura.
It bothers me too, because I like kickass!determined!Sakura
better than sidelined!unsure!weak!Sakura. :sigh:

The problem
is, in this world she doesn't have the same motivation. I had a two-pages-long
babble typed up to explain my reasoning (if you're interested, look for it
here: askerian(dot)livejournal(dot)com(slash)356112(dot)html
) Long story short, in the Teamwork universe, there was a Valley of the End
incident, but Naruto succeeded. He brought Sasuke back. Sakura never had any
reason to cast away her indecisiveness and throw herself at her training like a
woman drowning, so while she did grow up since then, she's lacking the critical
life-altering event that triggered her change into rawr!kickass!Sakura.
As a result, she's a lot more like part 1 Sakura than part 2. That's going to
change, very soon. Please trust me a little while longer?

(It doesn't
mean that you're wrong if you noticed her characterization wavering. I have a
really hard time keeping her consistent. But if your complain is that she's
generally too weak and the boys have to handle her with kid gloves, there's a
reason. As an aside, the boys treating her like that is NOT supposed to be a super-good
thing. It's just a habit they've fallen into.)

-Beta still
by Windshades. You're amazing, love, thank you.

Chapter 6: The Plan (part b, The Seal)
(Still Naruto)

Naruto
arrived back home only to trip on a box, and barely managed to hang onto the
door by the tips of his fingers.

"Ack!"

He stared
at the box, confused. It was full of his things : weapon cleaning kit, an old
kunai pouch, a wad of explosive tag paper, his frog wallet, and other odds and
ends which had progressively spilled from his bags onto the floor around the
couch. For a moment, he thought...

"...Sasuke?"
he called, staring at the box. It was brown, cardboard, and very unassuming.

"We're
moving. Did you get the scrolls?"

We. Naruto
relaxed. We. Whatever it was, it was alright -- waitasec.
"Ah -- yeah, yeah, I got them. We're moving?"

Sasuke was
in the kitchen, stacking up pots and pans. "Yes. Your scrolls and weapons
are in there. I washed your pile of dirty clothes along with some of mine;
they're drying."

"Oh.
Okay," he replied amiably. "Uh, by the way, Sasuke, what the fuck?"

"Did
you go deaf?" Sasuke retorted, rolling his eyes at Naruto before turning
away again.

"Did
you go crazy? I leave for a few hours
and when I come back, we're in the middle of moving? I thought we agreed that
there weren't any good places in the paper!"

Sasuke
grunted, and wound a length of wire through the biggest pot's handles to keep
the little pots inside. "We're going to the Uchiha compound."

Oh,
alright, that made perfect sense. Not.
Just the other day, Sasuke had had a massive breakdown about that stupid
compound, and now he wanted to go back? Naruto admitted that living there -- in
one of the houses that weren't burned to the ground, that is -- would be the
easiest way, but after due thought... The last time they'd been inside the
district's walls, Sasuke had lost it. Naruto wasn't willing to stay there if it
put his teammate on edge. "... You hit your head, didn't you?"

"Naruto,
shut up, and go get blankets. They're in the closet in my bedroom."

"What
the hell! No, I'm not your lackey."

Sasuke
hissed between his clenched teeth, as if forcing himself to breathe out because
Naruto was Just. That. Annoying.

Like Sasuke
wasn't the one willfully being an ass!

"Fine,
stay here, I don't care. I've warned the landlord that I'm not renewing the
lease, though, so you have ten days left before you have to find somewhere else
to stay."

Naruto
stood there and watched him, fists balled at his sides, unable to believe it.
"You... You utter asshole."

Sasuke
barely grunted in acknowledgment, and opened a closet in the corridor. Naruto
stalked toward him and slammed the door closed under his nose, hand firmly set
in the middle of the panel. "Don't you think maybe you should consult
other people before you make that kind of decision?! You want to move, so we
both have to move? What the hell, I live here, too!"

Sasuke
closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose; Naruto wanted to hit him,
all the good humor from his date with Sakura evaporated. How dare Sasuke act
like Naruto was the one behaving like an unreasonable, irrational ass?

"You're
missing the point."

"Well,
then, tell me the point, instead of
assuming that I can read your twisted brain and immediately know what the hell
you're on about! When I left, you were just fine staying here! You didn't seem
to even want to leave the apartment unless there was a fire or something! And
now you want something else and I should just have guessed--"

Sasuke
hissed again, and finally turned to face him. "Shut up, Naruto! It's not
about what I want. It's about what we
need. And right now, we need more space." He gave a long, meaningful
look at the pockets full of scrolls Naruto had stolen from the restricted
section and the Hokage. "And fewer neighbors."

"...
Oh." Naruto pushed away from the closet to free Sasuke, still pouting.
"Would it have been it so hard to tell me first, instead of just -- argh. You're annoying."

He stomped
into Sasuke's bedroom, throwing open the closet doors to dig out the blankets.
He figured that they'd be camping out for a few days, or something. There was a
sleeping bag, too, but it seemed a bit old, and anyway they had the ones they
used on missions.

He wasn't
sure he liked the idea of Sasuke going back to the Uchiha district so soon, but
if Sasuke said he could, then the only thing calling him on it would bring
would be broken bones. And the jerk had lived there from age eight to thirteen,
after all, and he hadn't died or anything.

Wait, it
had ended with the Orochimaru fiasco.

But if
Sasuke said he could... Rrrrgh. Hn.
Whatever. Naruto bet no one like the amazing Uzumaki
Naruto had ever lived inside the Uchiha district's walls. He would totally make
it non-gloomy enough for the three of them.

Four of
them, maybe.

... Damn,
it was hard to stay angry when he was reminded of that little detail. Hugest
little detail in the world, that was. Still pouting a bit, on principle, he
picked up a huge armful of blankets and stomped outside, giving Sasuke a
resentful look as he capitulated. "... Fine, fine. Whatever. Still, we
could have talked about it first."

"What
for? It was the only viable decision."

Oh, he was
so -- so -- ARGH! "There are days I really hate your guts, you know."

Naruto
piled his blankets on the kitchen counter. By the table, Sasuke was surveying
the stuff he'd packed critically. Naruto could see cleaning products in there,
amongst the pans and food and toilet paper; he couldn't help but snicker a bit.

"It's
a good thing you're such a perfect little housewife, or I might divorce
you."

Sasuke
glared at him, but didn't snap back with whatever insult he'd had in mind.
Damn. It wasn't funny when Sasuke pulled the 'more mature than you' card.

"Housewife
nothing; you're the one who's going to be cleaning out the house this evening.
I have to read the scrolls you brought."

"Oi! That's not fair!"

Sasuke
sighed. "Stop whining and get your traveling bag. We're just camping out
for tonight; we'll make trips back and forth tomorrow for the rest."

Good to
know that Naruto could still predict Sasuke some of the time. "Well, since
you've got it all planned out, your Majesty. Got a house in mind?"

"...Yes,
actually. The house seemed in good condition the last time I saw it; it should
be livable."

They picked
up everything -- the traveling backpacks, the additional blankets, the cooking
utensils and food -- then Naruto went out and waited for Sasuke to lock the
door. They were loaded down like pack mules; one of the neighbors stared at
them as they trudged down the stairs. Naruto grinned back; the old man looked
away with a huff.

"So,
what made you decide to move so fast?" he asked Sasuke as they made their
way through Konoha.

Sasuke
shrugged, looking away. "Something I found in one of Kakashi's books. The
phases of the moon matter, apparently, and I don't want to waste a month."

Naruto
blinked. "That's weird -- wait, figures. 'He' did say Sakura only had
three days to choose whether to keep the child or not because it was the full
moon soon, or something." It was strange to think that it had only been
two months since that night; it felt like forever, and those few days had been
so frantic, so full of life-changing events. "Does it matter for real? I
didn't think jutsus worked like that..."

Sasuke
frowned, and gave the street around them a suspicious look. "I'm not
giving you a lesson in elemental resonance now."
Naruto heard the unspoken 'in the middle of the street'. "Just think of it
as an extension of the rule that makes it easier to use Suiton
jutsus in areas where there's water close by."

Naruto
scratched his head, almost let the blankets drop, and caught them again with a
sheepish wince. "But Moon isn't an element."

"Mmh. But it -- 'che." Now
Sasuke looked bothered, as if he didn't know where to start.

"Yeah,
maybe you should discuss that with Sakura-chan," Naruto commiserated, and
gave Sasuke a 'what can you do' smile and a shrug. It was disappointing to want
to understand something, for once, and to know that he didn't have the right
level of knowledge for even the basics, but... Naruto didn't think himself
stupid -- he got great ideas regularly, and no one had ever accused him of
learning a hard jutsu too slowly... well, not recently -- but he wasn't an
academic either, so maybe it really was a waste of time to explain it to him.

"Oh,
yeah. Mind copying the stuff you need quickly? I'll replace the old hag's
scroll tomorrow... Provided it's the right one."

"What
do you mean, provided it's the right one? I thought you remembered what it
looked like."

"Yeah,
but there were two alike and then they all fell, so I grabbed the closest one,
but I'm not sure it's the right one. Either way, she's gonna notice soon."

Sasuke's
scowl deepened, but in the end he shrugged. "Fine, fine. I shouldn't need
to keep it that long. Kakashi's book gave me a good lead, I just need
details..."

Sasuke's
voice trailed off as he thought; and then he gave Naruto a sidelong glance.
Naruto wondered what he was plotting now.

"You'll
put Kakashi's book back, too."

"Oi! What for?"

"I
can't show up there two times in a row."

"Ah,
and me showing up just after you doesn't look weird -- what does it matter
anyway, no one saw you, right?"

Naruto
stared in confusion at Sasuke's back as the black-haired boy stalked ahead.

"What?
Someone saw you? Hah! Talk about a great ninja; you got caught by one of his
neighbors--"

"He
wasn't gone," Sasuke muttered through clenched teeth.

"He
wasn't? What the heck, I thought he was doing something this afternoon!
Something more important than training." Naruto stomped alongside Sasuke,
annoyed. It figured that Kakashi would consider lazing around his apartment all
afternoon to be more important than training his students.

Sasuke gave
him a huff, and looked away, muttering under his breath. "Yeah, that's
what I thought, too."

Naruto was
tempted to laugh at Sasuke for being caught, but then Sakura and Tsunade had
almost caught him, too. Anyway, what was bastard-sensei doing at home that was
more important than training, seriously?

Similarly
disgruntled, the boys trudged towards the Uchiha compound.

+

"Hey,
is it the right scroll?"

"Nope."

"What?
You can't be serious. Aw man, of all the days for my luck to run out."

"Eh.
Doesn't matter. Turns out I didn't need it after all."

"Wait,
what?"

"Mmh. Weren't you washing the windows?"

"...
That's a big collar you've got there, you know. Say, on a scale of one to ten,
how pissed would you be if I lost my grip on the soap just --"

"Naruto!"

"--
now? Hahaha."

"...
I'm going to kill you."

"Oi, careful of the books there. Don't--"

"This
better not end in a 'drop the soap' joke."

"... Hehe."

+

"If my
father catches you here, he'll probably kill you dead first and interrogate
your remains later, you know," Ino commented as she leaned lazily over
Naruto. Naruto grinned up at her, and shifted his hold on her windowsill.

"Aw,
come on, my intentions are honorable and all. Really."

The girl
laughed, high and musical, and moved aside, letting Naruto pull the rest of his
body up. Dumb anti-chakra sticking stuff on the walls, he'd fallen off once
already before he'd managed to get a good grip. He straddled the windowsill and
looked inside Ino's bedroom curiously. It was all done in greens and golds, with some pink here and there; and just as full of
pretty, breakable things as Sakura's bedroom had been the only time he'd
visited. Naruto briefly wondered if Sakura would want to litter their place
with tons of glass butterflies and other frou-frous. The thought made him grin
stupidly, even with the accompanying image of himself ruining her knickknacks
and getting murdered.

"Where's
Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked. There was a futon spread out beside Ino's bed,
but apart from the blonde girl, the room was empty.

"She's
in the bathroom. What did you say you... two," Ino added, as she noticed
Sasuke standing on the roof facing hers; "...were doing here?"

"Kidnapping,
of course!" Naruto retorted with a sly grin. "And if I'm lucky,"
he added, whispering, "perhaps even some good, old-fashioned
molesting."

Ino burst
into giggles, and covered her mouth with a hand, the perfect, well-bred lady.
"Between you and me, she might need some of that. Come in, before someone
notices you."

Naruto
hopped inside just as the door opened. Naruto grinned disarmingly. Whether it
was Ino's dad or Sakura, looking nice and harmless would help. It was Sakura;
the grin became a bit more appreciative when he noticed that she was wearing a
large t-shirt, and even bigger, fuzzy sweatpants, and still toweling off her
hair. So cute!

"Evening,
Sakura-chan!"

She stared
at him, pausing in mid-rub. "Naruto? What are you doing here?"

"They're
kidnapping you," Ino informed her dutifully, staring at her nails with
rapt attention. She wasn't smirking, but from her tone she might as well have
been.

"...
'They'?" Sakura repeated as she slowly lowered the towel. "What --
Naruto, it's almost ten in the
evening, I'm exhausted..."

A little
late on his cue, Sasuke appeared on the windowsill, balanced in a perfect
crouch and looking as if he'd always been there. Show-off.

"Pack
your things, Sakura."

Sakura
goggled at Sasuke, then at Naruto. "But -- what?"

Naruto
patted her shoulder consolingly. "Yeah, His Majesty has spoken."

"But I
can't just--"

"Aw,
come on! Where's your sense of adventure?"

"In
bed, and I was hoping to join it soon," she replied acerbically.

"Wah! Sakura-chan has been cheating on us with an
anthropomorphic personification of a concept!"

The all
stared at him, as if he'd sprouted horns and wings. He grinned his best
shit-eating grin right back.

"...
You were actually listening to that
nonsense on the radio?" Sasuke finally asked, shaking his head in
disbelief.

"It
sounded pretty neat," Naruto replied truthfully, and gave him the most
innocent look he could manage.

"And
how the hell did you remember it? I bet I can't even pronounce it," Ino
retorted, disgusted.

"Um. I
practiced."

Sakura
started laughing along with Ino, and even Sasuke snorted, turning away to hide
his amusement. Or maybe it was contempt, but Naruto wanted to be optimistic,
and besides, Sasuke tended to mix the two liberally, anyway.

"Dork,"
Sakura uttered, shaking her head sadly even as she smiled at him.

"Hey!"
Naruto protested, for the principle.

"Pack
up your stuff, Sakura," Sasuke said again. Naruto couldn't help but notice
that with her, the bastard could actually sound like he was making a suggestion
and not giving orders. Hn.

"Everything?"

From
Sakura's desolate look, she was probably thinking that they were about to run
away from Konoha again. Naruto winced, and chuckled ruefully. "Ah, at
least enough for tonight and tomorrow. You can come back for the rest
tomorrow."

"Alright,"
Sakura capitulated after a last questioning glance at Sasuke. Crouching, a knee
on her futon, she started adding stuff to a little backpack. "I just don't
want to leave without saying goodbye to Ino's parents."

"And
to me?" Ino asked tartly, and frowned imperiously at the two boys before
Sakura could answer. "Where are you taking her anyway? If it isn't a
secret..."

"Oh,
it's not really a secret," Naruto reassured her.

"Sakura
can tell you tomorrow," Sasuke cut him.

Naruto
blinked at Sasuke. What the heck; why not now? It wasn't like Ino was going to
follow and spy on them, or babble to her parents and send the ANBU after them. The
bastard was so damn paranoid.

"...
Sasuke-kun?" Sakura looked up at the window.

Sasuke
jumped off the windowsill, padded to her silently, not even glancing at Naruto
as he brushed past him. Leaning over her, he rested a pale hand on Sakura's
hand, the one that was holding up her backpack.

"Do
you trust me?" Sasuke asked softly.

Naruto
wondered why he was saying that now; it was evident that Sakura was going to
trust them until they were safe and could explain, there was no need to ask again.

Sakura was
sitting on the edge of the futon, neck arched to gaze up at Sasuke with a look
of sudden understanding in her slightly-too-wide eyes. "That -- now?"

Sasuke
nodded, straightened up, abandoning her hand as if he'd never been touching her
of his own will at all. Naruto shuddered, blinking. That -- for a moment, he'd
almost felt like he was part of their silent communication. But he hadn't been;
and he hadn't been the one Sakura's whole body had been angled toward, in
unconscious adoration.

Bah! The
bastard hadn't gotten a date with her either. It probably hadn't even occurred
to him at all.

Sakura was
putting on her sandals quickly, a lot more businesslike now. "I'll see you
later, Ino-pig," she assured as she jumped to her feet. "Come on,
let's go now."

Then she
was hurrying Sasuke to the window and tugging Naruto along by the sleeve.

Naruto was
about to jump out after them when Ino's hand caught his other sleeve.

"Naruto?"
The blonde girl looked worried. "You're not going to do anything stupid,
are you? You and Sasuke really are more trouble than you're worth,
sometimes."

Naruto's
smile gentled a little. "Nah, relax. The only stupid thing that might
happen is those two talking and talking until dawn, and I really want to get
some molestation in." With that, he jumped onto the next roof, waving back
at Ino, and put on a burst of speed to catch up to his teammates.

+

Naruto
wasn't sure why Sakura was making that wary, pouty
face; they'd scrubbed the abandoned Uchiha house clean, in the little time they
had before picking her up.

Okay,
they'd cleaned up the living room.

Well, the
floor and the coffee table weren't too dirty, at any rate. The couch had reeked
of mildew and its cushions had been full of mice nests, so they'd pulled it out
in the backyard and left it there. Some of the smell lingered despite their
best efforts.

Still! It
wouldn't be any less comfortable than camping out, and at least they wouldn't
get rained on.

... They'd
even placed buckets under the leaks in the ceiling.

"Um...
Any reason why we're... Here?"

"It
has a dojo and no neighbors," Sasuke replied without turning around. He
was kneeling by the coffee table, emptying the bag of scrolls and notes.
"And the roof is still mostly sound, which isn't the case of many other
houses around here," he added with a touch of sarcasm.

Naruto had
a feeling that Sakura had been asking what the hell they were doing in the
Uchiha district in the first place, even if this house stood almost on the
other end of the district from where Sasuke's home had been. He also had a
feeling that Sasuke had been fully aware of the nuance. Bah.

"He
says we need space to do our thing," Naruto informed Sakura helpfully.
"And besides this house could be pretty neat; it just needs a little
work."

Sakura gave
the moldy walls and the swelled-shut wooden blinds a doubtful look.

"No,
seriously, it's got two bathrooms and an attic. And tons of space! We could
live here -- or try to," he amended as he caught her expression. "At
least until we either fix it or find something better. There would be no rent
to pay, and ... We'd have more than enough space to be together," he
added, his voice softening unintentionally, and tried not to look too much like
he was pleading.

Mollified,
she pulled her sleeping bag out of her pack. Naruto's and Sasuke's were folded
in two by the coffee table, as seats; she dropped hers facing Sasuke's spot and
then sat on it gingerly, watching Sasuke and his notes with trepidation.

"So,
what is this grand scheme about?"

Sasuke
pushed one of the sheets of paper at her. She picked it up as if it was about
to explode. Morbidly curious, Naruto crept closer, taking place on his own
sleeping bag at one end of the room.

"I
haven't finished the research," Sasuke said quietly as she read.

She
blinked, slowly, and looked up at Sasuke as if she had never seen him in her
life and wasn't especially thrilled to see him now. "... You want to
inject my potentially half-demon child with demon chakra."

"Yes."

"Excuse
me, but are you crazy?"

Naruto
winced at her incredulous tone. "Well, it was my idea -- and no, not into
the kid, but into you."

"We
need to get it from someone who wouldn't be bothered by the constant
drain." Sasuke looked just as stubbornly expressionless; Naruto didn't
like it.

"Oh,
then I guess that makes it okay."

Naruto
winced; Sasuke's eyelid twitched.

"I
mean, after all, the Kyuubi will just possess me, and not the child! It isn't
like everyone wasn't already worried that the child might be possessed when
there was no physical link--"

"And
Jiraiya told us that Kyuubi was bound to me now and forever and that he'd die
with me!" Naruto cut her off, slamming his palm against the table. Sakura
and Sasuke stared at him; he glared back at Sakura, refusing to look down.
"Please, we've tried to figure ways to plug the loopholes. It looks
doable. Won't you at least look, too? If you find a problem that Sasuke missed,
well, then, we'll drop it. But -- come on." He reached out hesitantly,
touched her hair, expecting her to bolt any second now. "...Please."

Tsunade's
solutions all seemed so half-hearted to him, and he didn't want her to die. He
didn't think he could take it.

She closed
her eyes, took a deep breath. "Well, I guessed right at least. The Council
and Hokage-sama will tear us apart."

"Not
if it works. It isn't like we're trying to break his seal."

"...
But what if we damage it? What if we damage Naruto's seal and his -- tenant
starts taking control of him?" She paused, suddenly -- stared at Naruto.
"Naruto... How did you get that idea?"

Naruto
shrugged. "I just thought that I had so much chakra and you had so little,
and there are so many jutsus that drain people's
chakra."

"Are
you sure," she said softly, "are you absolutely sure that it wasn't
Kyuubi's idea?"

Naruto
stared at her for a few seconds, and then he grinned insouciantly.
"Yep." Reasonably so. He ignored a dark chuckle as the demon fox
caught the gist of the conversation; the son of a bitch wasn't going to make
him doubt now. Besides, even if it had been Kyuubi's idea first, he trusted his
teammates to make sure there would be no nasty surprises. "...He
agrees."

"He
agrees -- Naruto! What's to say we're not playing right into his hands? How can
you even trust him--"

"I
don't. But I can tell when he lies," or at least he had never caught
Kyuubi in the act, "and he can't leave me. Even if my seal was unraveled
now, he'd lose huge chunks of himself and he'd probably die. Sakura-chan... I
won't tell you he cares, 'cause he doesn't, but he doesn't really want the kid
to die."

Sakura
looked down at the scrolls, uneasy. "...In the stories I read, kitsune could possess people."

Sasuke
crossed his arms, giving an annoyed sniff. "And that's why we're going to
make damn sure that all you get is chakra, and nothing else." He pushed
the scrolls at her again; cautiously, as if it might bite, she picked up the
first one and reluctantly started reading.

"...A
permanent drain?" Sakura frowned, visibly uneasy with the idea. "I'm
not sure I like the idea."

"It's
semi-permanent; from my calculations, it will last a year or two before all
that chakra erodes it. You're free to counter-check."

"I
will." Still frowning, she kept reading. Naruto started tapping his
fingers on the table in a complicated little rhythm; Sasuke glared him into
transferring the tapping to his thigh. Sakura didn't seem to notice.

"Why
didn't you explore the possibility of regularly draining Naruto for chakra?
There are short-action ninjutsus for that;
Kakashi-sensei probably knows a ton, there has to be one that wouldn't hurt
Naruto. You went directly with opening a long-lasting conduit between Naruto
and me..."

Sasuke
lifted his hand, and started counting on his fingers. "First, they would
only tap his surface chakra, which would exhaust him as he tries to drag up
more from the Kyuubi and convert it to replace the loss; which also means
regularly opening himself up to the Kyuubi. Second, none of us has a bloodline
or a specialty that would make such a drain doable with simple hand seals. We
would either have to draw a circle with all the right patterns over and over
again, with all the problems of necessary space and possibility for error that
ensue. Or we would have to stop whatever we were doing and come back to the
main circle every few days. And there would be a possibility of other people
trying to tap into it and steal Naruto's chakra. Third, this way you can get
chakra whenever you need it, not just whenever we can stop."

"Also,
there would be fewer occasions for people to start getting all hissy and telling us to stop," Naruto added with a
nonchalant shrug. "Or to think we're preparing a coup or something."

Sakura
scowled. "As if they won't, when they realize that I have a direct
pipeline into the hugest source of raw chakra our country has ever known."

"Well,
yeah, but they won't be able to break it so easily, and we can convince them
that it was for your health and nothing else."

She shook
her head. "They'll just separate us. Without a grounded seal, it's harder
to keep a connection between two people. There's a reason Tsunade-sama said she'd have to keep me in bed if they tried that
with me; if I leave the circle, it weakens the link! It isn't possible to link
two people directly without forcing them to regularly be in contact... No, a
seal applied directly on someone wouldn't keep up a regular channel. It would
weaken with distance and then break," she repeated, stubborn.

"The
Heaven seal didn't," Sasuke replied quietly.

Naruto
tensed; Sakura flinched. Sasuke's hands were ostensibly resting on the table,
as if he wanted to prove that he didn't feel the urge to cover his neck.

"That's
-- different," Sakura eventually replied. She wasn't looking at Sasuke,
and she sounded a little choked up. "The Heaven seal would have been
dormant unless you decided to use it, wasn't it? Whereas this one..."

"This
one won't let your reserves get so low that you can't sustain the child. But
the rest should be up to you. And of course, if you take more than you can
handle, you'll probably die."

"But
it will never be entirely closed."

Sasuke
shrugged, and gave her a long unimpressed look. "It's a matter of strength
of will."

Sakura's
back stiffened, and she gave Sasuke a furious glare. Naruto had a feeling that
the bastard was about to end up in the doghouse. "Is there something you
want to say, Sasuke-kun?"

Sasuke
shrugged and leaned back. "I just said it. It's a matter of strength of
will. And you shouldn't need inhuman amounts of it. If you want to refuse
anyway, alright, it's your choice. We'll just wait for you to find another
way."

Sakura's
fists slammed on the coffee table and she rose on her knees; Naruto started
reaching up to hold her back, but she stopped herself, stiff and radiating
barely contained rage.

"You
-- son of a bitch. Do you think I
haven't tried? Do you think it isn't all I think about, in between training and
missions and more training? I can't even think properly, I'm exhausted all the
time and -- you're blackmailing me with -- with -- you son of a bitch!"

Naruto
winced, and crawled over to her side of the table. He didn't remember ever
seeing her get this angry with Sasuke -- he didn't remember her getting quite
this angry at him, for that matter. "Sakura-chan, he didn't mean --"

"I
think that's exactly what he meant!" She speared Sasuke with another
glare. "That if I can't do any better, I should shut up -- it's my body,
I'll be the one at risk! I'm not at risk enough already?!"

Naruto
flinched; he gave Sasuke a nervous look, but Sasuke seemed to be carved into a
block of marble.

"I'm
sick and tired of this situation! I'm sick and tired of having my whole career
messed with, and my life and the child's put at risk -- and then you two go
around and just pull a solution out of your asses and pretend it's just
perfect, like the risks don't matter -- you're not the ones who'll risk going crazy or dying -- and I'm sick and tired of not even being able to save my
own damn self!"

The echo of
her final shriek died, swallowed by the old walls. Naruto couldn't think of a
single thing to say to fill the silence.

"You
-- you just ride into town like heroes and fix everything without asking, and
-- it's all so perfect that we're not
allowed to criticize anything, and --
'here you are, nothing you did on your own worked, but so what, you're saved,
now' -- and that gets on my nerves, alright? It really gets on my nerves."

Naruto
opened his mouth, but he didn't know what he wanted to say, so he closed it
again. Sakura was turned away from both of them, her shoulders tense, her
knuckles white. He wanted to fix it, but she wouldn't want him to, even if he knew
how.

"I
apologize."

Sasuke's
voice was quiet, measured. He was scowling; probably didn't like having to say
it. He didn't have much practice, to be frank. Naruto looked back at Sakura;
she was still turned away, but there was a curious stillness to her posture
that made him hold his breath.

"...
Yes, well." She got up, rather stiffly. "I'm going to check out the
house. If we're going to live here--" She snapped her jaws closed, walked
out without looking at either of them. Naruto slowly sat back down on his
sleeping bag, giving Sasuke an alarmed look. Sasuke didn't look back; both
elbows on the table, hands in front of his mouth again, he was staring at the
scrolls.

"...Sasuke?"

"I'm
going to make tea."

And then
Naruto was alone in the living room and wondering how everything could have
gone so wrong so fast.

Sakura had
said she was thinking of living there, right? With them? And she hadn't left.
She was just cooling down. And Sasuke -- well.

Well, fuck.
He slumped back on his sleeping bag, sprawled, and stared at the ceiling. The
proper christening of the house was going to be harder than expected.

Sasuke
drifted back ten minutes later, with a kettle and mugs; Naruto lifted his head
from the floor and watched him set them on the table in silence, and let his
head fall again when Sasuke sat and started sipping quietly. Sakura was away
for a half-hour at least; they could hear a few thumps and scrapes as she,
presumably, moved furniture around and forced open a few windows upstairs.
Naruto closed his eyes and listened, trying to guess what every sound meant;
some were pretty indefinable. Eventually, the noises died down; and a few
minutes after a large appliance had crashed into the couch, out in the garden,
she was walking down the stairs and back to the living room.

"There's
so much dust upstairs. The windows should be open when we clean it off, or
we're going to suffocate."

Naruto
grinned and sprang into a sitting position. "Yeah, you should have seen
what the living room looked like. It was like walking in snow!"

"Oh, ew, gray fluffy snow."

Sakura's
tone was still a little tense, but Naruto beamed back anyway.

Sasuke
wasn't looking at her; he was pouring another mug of tea. Still silent, he
picked it up and placed it in front of her, and then he looked up. They stared
at each other for a while; finally, Sakura closed her eyes and her strained
expression softened.

"...How
do you plan on filtering out the Kyuubi's influence?"

Sasuke
opened another scroll, showing her diagrams that looked like snowflakes, and
lines and lines of calculations.

"Mmh. What's that variable?"

"Demonic
chakra doesn't react entirely like human chakra. There's always a variable. I
don't think it can be erased."

"It's
not a perfect solution, Sakura-chan," Naruto intervened. "There's
always going to be a risk where the furball is
concerned. He could be lying to me, his chakra could be impossible to use for
anyone who wasn't born with it -- perhaps we can't convert it and it will burn
you like it burned Sasuke that time I tried to heal him. Perhaps it will affect
the kid and then we'll end up with a kitsune
child." He looked up at her, the poor little smile he had been holding onto
dissipating. "Perhaps you'll die. And we can't tell you to risk it instead
of continuing to trust in the old hag. Maybe she'll find something -- or your
body will adapt, or the drain will slow down and then our idea will be useless.
I don't have a clue."

Sakura
stared down into her cup, and then delicately lifted it to take a sip, a
distant look in her eyes. "So in the end, it's all left to chance."

"But
there are still probabilities," Sasuke countered. "And if we work on
this idea, get rid of as many variables as possible, perhaps we can reduce the
probabilities to a more acceptable level."

Sakura
didn't move for a long moment, staring down into her cup; and then she nodded.
"Alright. Alright, I'll work on it. It still isn't a yes!" she warned
them sternly. Naruto just beamed back. If she ended up saying no, it would be
because there was a problem that just couldn't be worked out. But at least they
were doing something.

Well.
Sasuke and Sakura were doing something.

At first,
Naruto contributed a few words here and there, and watched their diagrams with
confused fascination. Eventually, though, they drifted into arcane calculations
and secondary and tertiary meanings of the twelve hand seals and elemental
resonance and whatnot, and he was reduced to crossing his arms on the table and
letting their voices wash over him, since he didn't have a clue what they were
on about.

He didn't
even realize he had dozed off; he just noticed when he woke up, slumped
uncomfortably against the table, and found them still debating quietly at the
light of an old oil lamp. Sakura had a scroll of her own to write her
notations, and it was already halfway full. Naruto didn't have a great sense of
time, but it must have been after two AM at the very least.

"That's
not possible -- oh, damn it, I lost the thread again. How far did you
get?"

"... I
got a different result this time." Sasuke glared at his paper and pencil,
as if they had betrayed him. Sakura gave a tired giggle.

Naruto sat
up, stretched his arms over his head, and then reached out quickly and stole
both scrolls. "Time's up! You're going to bed now."

"Naruto!
I was just -- you can't do that, I was writing!"

"No,
you weren't, you were crossing out stuff. Just let it rest and try again
tomorrow, you -- whoops! Missed," he exclaimed as he dodged Sasuke's
sudden lunge.

"Naruto..."
Sasuke growled.

Naruto hid
the scrolls behind his back. "Nope. Iruka-sensei and Kakashi-sensei both
say that when people are tired, they make stupid mistakes. You two are making
stupid mistakes, and we've got to be up at seven AM on top of that. Kakashi's
going to destroy you two if you come and train without having slept."

Sasuke and
Sakura exchanged annoyed looks, but eventually, they capitulated.

"Fine,
fine. Give me back my scroll, I want to jot down a few ideas," Sakura demanded.
Naruto gave her a suspicious look. "Just a few tracks to explore
later!"

Sasuke
snatched the scrolls from Naruto's hand. "And in the meantime, you can
make the bed."

Snorting,
Naruto went to get the blankets they'd brought back from the apartment, and then
unfolded them in a dry corner, piling them up to cushion the floor a little. At
least they wouldn't get cold; it was wood, not stone.

... It was
too bad that the sleeping bags were way too narrow for two people, much less
three.

Then again,
if he unzipped them all the way... Grinning, he spread his own over the
blankets to make the bed less scratchy.

"What
are you doing?"

"Making
the bed," he replied, sticking out his tongue. "And gimme your sleeping bags; I'll zip 'em
together to make a big blanket."

Sasuke was
giving the blankets an unconvinced look. "The one who's going to be in the
middle better not need to get up too fast during the night," he groused;
he meant he wanted one of the sides for easy escape.

Naruto
looked at Sakura. "You wanna be in the
middle?"

"Um."

Okay, what
had he said that would make her blush?

"Sakura-chan?
I figured..."

She rolled
her scrolls and aligned them in a corner of the coffee table, and gave Sasuke a
quick, disappointed look. "Um, I'd love to, but... Sometimes I do need to
get up fast in the morning, and well, I don't want to pull the blanket out with
me."

Sasuke
frowned. "You still get morning sickness?"

"...Yes,
that too."

"Aha!
Need to pee?" Naruto dodged a flying pen and snickered at her. "Okay,
okay -- oh hey, that means I get to be in the middle? Awesome!"

Sasuke gave
him a long, suspicious look. He must have been even more tired than Naruto
thought, because he didn't say anything. To be frank, Naruto was still a little
groggy from waking up from his too-short nap himself. Not enough to keep the
glee down. He went to put the pen back on the table, then dug through his pack
to find his pajamas. The nightcap had suffered an irreparable tear during a joint
mission with Kiba, that rat bastard. ...and if he slept between the two of
them, he would probably be warm enough to forego the top. Hohoho.

He couldn't
help but laugh as Sakura eep-ed and retreated to the
corridor when he started to strip. "Aw, come on, you've seen me naked
before."

"Oh,
shut up!"

Still
chuckling, Naruto yanked on his pajama pants. By the table, Sasuke was pulling
off his collared shirt and shorts; he folded them before looking in his pack.
So anal-retentive. Naruto was kind of disappointed when the boxers stayed on,
and a tank top made its appearance. Well, at least it showed some shoulders.

"Do
you even own one top that isn't
blue?" he nagged, chuckling a little.

"Do
you own anything that isn't orange?"

"Lemme think... I've got green briefs... Oh, Sakura-chan,
you can come back." He turned to look toward the corridor -- and found her
standing there, blushing just a little. "Sakura-chan! Don't tell me you
were peeping!"

"I
wasn't!"

"You're
blushing!"

"I
wasn't peeping," she repeated as she stomped in the living room.
"It's just kind of ... hitting me. You know... Going to bed, with...
um."

Sasuke sat
down on the outer side of the bed, put the oil lamp down on the floor within
arm's reach, and looked up at her. He didn't say anything; he just waited. She
was frozen there in the middle of the room. Naruto gave her his hand, which she
took without looking at him, and led her to their corner.

They sat in
a circle, giving each other little looks.

"It's...
Kind of weird, isn't it."

"But
not a bad weird, right?"

"No,
no. Just a -- a 'I've known them forever and now we're sharing a bed' weird.
And I know we've done that before, but this time it's different. It's -- it's
deliberate. Do you understand?"

Naruto scratched
his head. He thought so, but he also thought that she was thinking too much
once again.

"We'll
get used to it, I guess," Sasuke commented prosaically, and lifted the
improvised blanket.

Naruto
grinned. Yeah, they would.

There was
some awkwardness as they took their places; his ankle bumped into Sasuke's,
Sakura kept shifting at his side, and the blanket was just large enough,
provided none of them moved around too much. Not that he cared; he was in the
middle. But the discreet tug of war over him was distracting. He looked at
Sasuke -- who was turning his back on them, of course -- and then at Sakura.
She gave him a guilty look.

"Uncomfortable?"

"...No
pillow."

Naruto
offered his arm; and was surprised when she took it, curling up against his
side shyly, her head on his shoulder. He hugged her tight, nuzzling her hair.

"...'night
Sakura-chan."

"Goodnight,
Naruto," she whispered back. "Goodnight, Sasuke-kun."

"Yeah,
'night, bastard."

Sasuke
doused the light and lay back down, his back still to them. "Goodnight.
Now sleep."

Naruto
snorted quietly, and ran his fingers up Sasuke's spine. Sasuke jerked briefly
and kicked back at Naruto's leg. "Don't even start."

"Aw,
come on, I'd sleep better after a quickie."

Sakura
gasped on a shocked giggle. "Naruto!"

"If
it's too late to stay up, doesn't it follow that it's too late for sex?"
Sasuke grumbled tiredly.

"Yes,
you were the one who nagged us into getting some sleep," Sakura added as
she poked Naruto in the side.

"No
spontaneity," Naruto whined. "I'm gonna die of blue balls one of
these days, mark my words. And then you'll cry and say 'Oh, if only we had
known, we would have given him a handjob or two,' but
it will be TOO LATE."

He would
have continued his tirade, but Sakura's hand slid over his stomach, soft, light,
and he gasped.

And then
she pinched him.

"Ow!"

"Sleep.
Pervert."

He would
have protested, but then she kissed his jaw, so he shut up.

"Goodnight."

"G'night."

"We
aren't going to start again, are we? Just sleep already."

"Aye,
aye, sir."

"Fuck
you."

Sakura
chuckled softly. "Love you, too."

"...
Yeah," Naruto replied softly.

Sasuke
didn't say anything, which was telling enough.

+

Naruto woke
up to Sakura squirming out of his arms. Grumbling sleepily, he tried to hold
her back. "Nuhh..."

"Naruto,
I'm going to throw up on you."

"Eep."

Naruto
freed her reluctantly, and turned onto his other side, hoping against all
probabilities that Sasuke, at least, would still be there. Fat chance. Opening
his eyes, he saw the Uchiha checking on them from the kitchen as Sakura hurried
out, then he disappeared again. Sasuke was already dressed; once he got his
tea, he would be ready to go. Well, damn. There went Naruto's plan to christen
the house properly. It would be time to go soon; Naruto wouldn't have minded
being late for such a worthy cause, especially since Kakashi was always late
for a lot of non-reasons, but he was pretty sure they were going to disagree.

He sat up
in the bed and watched as Sakura came back, buzzed around to organize her
scrolls,� disappeared in the kitchen for
some tea, picked up clean clothes, and disappeared into the corridor again. He
just had to wonder how she could look so efficient when her skin was still kind
of pale greenish and her eyes were shadowed. Habit, maybe.

"Hurry
up, Naruto, or we'll leave without you!" she called back.

He sighed,
and changed right in the middle of the living room. And if he took a little
more time than strictly necessary to look for his clean boxers when the old
ones were already off, well then, they had asked for it.

Should have
asked for it. Whatever.

At least
Sasuke didn't throw stuff at his head again, but neither did he give Naruto and
his bare butt more than a quick, exasperated look.

'I shacked up with two prudes,' Naruto admitted resignedly.

It was a
little weird to be leaving the walls of the Uchiha compound, instead of
Sasuke's old apartment. The streets were so quiet and creepy, and Sasuke was
stomping onwards, with his head held high and staring right ahead, as if he was
leading the way for a military parade and wasn't allowed to break proper
decorum. Sakura and Naruto exchanged worried looks; but if they just up and
said that maybe they should live elsewhere, Sasuke would get pissed and dig his
heels in just to be contrary. At least once they were out of the district and
back to more normal streets, he allowed Sakura and Naruto to catch up.

They
arrived on time; Kakashi didn't, of course. Naruto wanted to make-out a bit in
the meantime; they chose to discuss more seal stuff. Blah. He listened anyway
-- even if he couldn't add anything, just in case -- but he only gained a few
random fragments like "Akariku's Principle"
or "mirrored equilateral formations" and a headache.

They went
through more quick D-rank missions used as background for tedious drills. At
least neither of his teammates could start talking about The Big Plan again,
not with Kakashi-sensei around; still, the boredom just about killed him,
especially compounded with the many tiny hints that Sakura wasn't as alright as
she pretended to be. There wasn't much they could do to help her overcome
exhaustion except carrying her or otherwise doing it for her -- and that was
rather counterproductive. He'd gotten used to ignoring it, though. By now seeing
her hands shake was business as usual and Sakura got mopey
when they worried too much.

The only
highlight of the day was when, on a whim, Kakashi decided to show them the hand
seals for a basic Suiton jutsu. On their first try,
Naruto produced a few drops of water, Sakura a squirt; Sasuke tried several
times with mounting annoyance, but never got anything but steam. Kakashi shook
his head and chuckled.

Sakura
tried to comfort Sasuke by telling him that he was already a master of fire and
that water was boring anyway, and she was only that good because she already
knew another Suiton jutsu.

She offered
no explanations on Naruto's result. Sasuke wouldn't have been listening even if
Naruto hadn't been laughing at him loud enough to cover her voice.

They got a
full-out brawl out of it, and when Sakura demanded that Kakashi do something, he
started giving them pointers.

Still.
Boring. Naruto couldn't wait to actually do something, but he was going to be
useless until the time came to actually implement the plan. Maybe, once he was
done putting back the stolen scrolls and book this afternoon, he should go and
find Kiba, Neji, or Lee for a spar. Or hell, all three.

They broke
up around three PM; Kakashi had, once again, better things to do with his time
-- if the things were "stay home and freak out sneaky students",
Naruto would... he didn't know what he would do, but he'd be annoyed.

They walked
Sakura to the Hokage Tower, and then Sasuke left to settle more Uchiha business
stuff with the bank and clan registry that Naruto didn't ask about. Naruto went
back to the house in which they were camping, picked up the scrolls, and
trekked back to the tower, muttering all the while about the stupid people who
had chosen to build their district at the ass-end of Konoha.

He knew
that Sakura and Tsunade would be at the hospital, so he just made his way
upstairs, waving at the guards and whistling all the while. He didn't even
bother knocking before he reached for the handle.

"If
you're looking for Tsunade, she isn't here," a deep masculine voice
bellowed cheerfully in his ear.

Naruto eeped and whirled around. Jiraiya was looming over him,
with a genial smile on his face and an evil glint in his eyes.

"Pervert-sennin!" Ack! Caught in the
act! Wait, no, he had no way of knowing what Naruto was doing. Yeah. "Get
a kick out of startling people?"

"Oho,
so I startled you? Maybe you need remedial stealth training."

"In
your dreams, perhaps," Naruto grumbled, crossing his arms defensively.
Jiraiya herded him toward the end of the corridor, and Naruto didn't have any
choice but to follow reluctantly. "What do you want? ...You don't have
another trip planned anytime soon, right?" he added suddenly, worried.
Cool techniques or not, it really wasn't the right time to go on a field trip
with the old man.

"Nah.
Why?"

Naruto
relaxed. "Oh, no reason, just got some stuff planned."

"Stuff, eh?"

Well, it
was Jiraiya who had taught Naruto that hiding the truth was easier if you
actually told the truth. Or part of it. And let them assume whatever they wanted.
"Yeah. With my girlfriend," he added with a huge grin. The grin was
sincere -- he always got a kick out of thinking of Sakura as his girlfriend,
and this was the first time he said the term out loud in front of another
person. It felt like a milestone, even if Jiraiya already knew.

"Ooh?
Sounds like fun."

The old
pervert waggled his eyebrows; Naruto made a face at him. "Don't you have
anything better to perv about?"

"Perv! Perv, he says. I am doing something infinitely better than perving."
Jiraiya drew himself up proudly. "I'm drafting up my next epic."

Naruto
snorted. "The boyfriend will be
there, too."

Calling
Sasuke his boyfriend definitely felt weirder than calling Sakura-chan his
girlfriend. But it was all repaid when Jiraiya twitched.

"Boyfriend. Booyfrieend...
Like a boy. To make out with. Still inspired?"

"...You
just ruined a masterpiece, brat."

Naruto
snickered, even as Jiraiya cuffed him.

"Kinda gross to be writing about your students anyway, isn't
it."

"Bah!
Who would want to read about YOU? The situation has potential, that's all. It
would certainly be an original twist in a romance story."

Jiraiya had
herded him to the empty meeting room at the end of the corridor as they talked;
they leaned side by side against the windowsill.

"Romance,
hah. You write smut, old man."

"Well,
of course! What better way to celebrate the passion of two hearts -- or three
-- finally coming together?"

Naruto
grinned. "And now you sound like Gai-sensei."

He got
another slap to the head for his troubles.

"So
disrespectful."

They
watched the plaza underneath, the streets of Konoha stretching and sprawling up
to the forest.

"...You
will be taking the proper precautions for your escapade, I hope," Jiraiya
eventually commented, watching him from the corner of his eye.

"It's
not like we could knock up Sakura-chan again, you know," Naruto retorted
without thinking.

There was a
flash of pained amusement in Jiraiya's eyes. What had Naruto gotten wrong now?
... Oh. OH. Those kinds of
precautions. Well, damn, did the old pervert really know everything or what?

/Didn't think you could fool an old fox, did
you,/ Kyuubi
rumbled mockingly. Naruto grumbled his annoyance under his breath, at the old
man and at the demon fox both. Since when did Kyuubi approve of anyone he knew
anyway?

"...
Yeah, we're taking all the precautions we know."

"Well,
that's a step in the right direction." Jiraiya turned back to watch the
city, appearing to lose interest in the conversation. Naruto knew better now.

Well then.
If the old pervert had guessed what was truly going on...

"Hey,
old man..."

"I
told you already, don't call me that. What do you want, brat?"

"Well,
I--"

/Leave false tracks./

Naruto
closed his mouth, startled at the active interest the fox was taking in the
situation. Kyuubi hadn't offered more than a few offhanded comments at random
since the fire; it felt... weird to have him so close to the surface, so awake
and aware. A little crowded in his head, as if they ran the risk of blurring at
the edges if they didn't watch what belonged to who. Naruto didn't push him
back down, even though he knew he would probably end up feeling the repercussions
in the next few days.

'Why? He already knows.'

/Not all your watchdogs are as pitiful at
stalking as you are./

'I'm not pitiful!' Naruto protested; and then he paused. He
hadn't noticed spies any time today... '--
did you... notice anything?'

Kyuubi
growled in annoyance. /With what? My
nonexistent ears? The eyes you refuse to turn in the right direction? Stupid brat./

Naruto
pouted. Like he could just guess what Kyuubi could or couldn't see, when half
the time he barely noticed the furball existed. 'Why do you care anyway?'

/Do you WANT to be stopped now?/

... Well,
no, he didn't. So fine! Fine. Stupid fox could stay, and too bad if Naruto
ended up sleepwalking again. Now how to make Jiraiya understand what Naruto was
on about, while still making potential spies understand something else
entirely...

"Naruto?"
Jiraiya was peering at him.

"Ah --
uh, sorry. We still don't know what they want with guys like me, do we? Those
guys with the weird cloaks."

"We
have a couple of guesses," Jiraiya replied, arching an eyebrow at him.

Okay. Okay,
he could do it. Now if there were spies, they would assume he was asking because
he was worried about Akatsuki. Which was classified info, but hey, he was the main
person concerned there. He just had to keep it... what was the word again?
Ambiguous. "Think they want... Well, you know how my chakra is?"

Jiraiya
hummed, but seemed to take a perverse delight in waiting to see how Naruto was
going to end the sentence if Jiraiya didn't finish it for him. Naruto gave him
a disgruntled glare.

"You
see what I mean, old man. Do you think they might want to... To tap into it or
something?"

"It's
a possibility," Jiraiya commented noncommittally. "At first glance,
it looks likely."

Naruto fell
silent, hoping that he looked thoughtful, and not like he was trying to
pinpoint eventual spies. As far as he could tell, there was no one at the window
next to or over them, and the corridor was empty. He couldn't detect anyone,
and if there were bugs in the room, they were well-hidden, but surely Jiraiya
would stop him if he said something incriminating.

Unless
Jiraiya really didn't know anything and was pretending his ass off to trick
Naruto into telling him, which was a strong possibility.

Bah. He had
laid enough of a false trail with the Akatsuki thing. Hopefully they would
think him too simple for a two-layered misdirection.

"Say,
hypothetically, what would happen if someone set up a direct pipeline from my
chakra to theirs?"

Jiraiya
chuckled wryly and shook his head in open amusement. His eyes were wary.
"Depends on if the link is direct or filtered."

Naruto
frowned. "Well, if it wasn't filtered, they'd just burn their coils -- I
mean, that's what happened with Sasuke, and it was just a little bit of
chakra."

Jiraiya
nodded in approval. "Indeed. But sadly, they're smarter than that."

"So what
would happen with filters?"

"Depends
on the type... Perhaps a power boost. Possibly a crater."

Naruto
winced. "Eurgh. Craters are bad."

"It
all depends on how smoothly the flow is drawn out; they would need to control
the output and the power surges very carefully."

Jiraiya
picked up a piece of chalk and idly started tracing lines on the blackboard.

"With
a structure like this, you'd be more likely to survive it, and it also would
give us more time to rescue you -- and if you add this here, it gives you --
the victim -- a little more control on the flow, so in case the... guys in the
weird cloaks give you some slack, you can slow down the process yourself. It
would still be a hell of a strain on both you and the receiver, but then
they're not S-class for nothing."

Naruto
winced. Sakura was very much not S-class. None of them were. "... But what
if they, err. Wanted to be on the safe side? And looked for a way to echo the,
you know, the healing thinger I do?"

Jiraiya
added a few scribbles. "Then it should look somewhat like that; if you
disrupt this, it will backfire rather spectacularly."

Naruto took
note. No disrupting the kinda angular coiled ram-horn
pattern inside that triangle. Absolutely not.

...What did
it look like again?

"...But
in this case," Jiraiya continued, "there would be problems with... personality contamination."

Personality
what? ...Oh. Possession. Naruto remembered that objection from Sasuke and
Sakura's conversation. "There's no filters for that?"

"Hm, depends on the type, of course. Filters in this
--" quick sketch-- "structure seem counterintuitive, on account
of--" Jiraiya pointed out little details "-- these, but they would
regulate the wild fluctuations better, and keep only the -- let's say
brainwaves -- that echo the target's waves. The two sets of brainwaves might
echo off each other for a while, leading to mood swings, but then there
wouldn't be anything new that wasn't there before in the target's
personality."

Naruto
cringed. "Err. Alright." He hadn't gotten any of that. And could the
diagram be any more complicated? He would never remember it all.

/I will./

Naruto
swallowed. '...Tell me why I should trust
you to help Sakura not get possessed by you.' He knew that technically
Kyuubi couldn't leave him, but apparently, kitsune
didn't really need to move to their
next victim to exercise an influence on their minds.

/Feh! She's weak. Why
would I want her?/

Naruto
growled a little. It sounded dismissive enough to be the truth, and that was
reassuring, but still. 'Don't talk about
her like that.'

Jiraiya was
staring at him.

"Ah --
sorry, I got a bit... Distracted." Naruto tried smiling, and realized that
his canines had grown.

"Naruto--"

"It's
alright. I just -- I'm not gonna remember all that," he admitted,
shrugging; he hoped Jiraiya wouldn't ask.

Jiraiya
didn't; he just gave him a last narrow-eyed look, and then he sighed and leaned
back against the windowsill. "Well then, you will just have to do what
everyone does when they wish to educate themselves, and go to the
library."

"But I
already did! And there was nothing that helped enough on that stuff, even in
the restri-- er. The
specialized section."

Jiraiya sighed.
Loudly.

"Hopeless.
Subtle as a brick," Naruto heard him mutter under his breath. "Did
you check this side of the library?"

Naruto
looked out of the window toward where Jiraiya was pointing, and stared in
confusion. The East side was for agriculture and carpentry and things like
that. "Er, old man..."

"Who
knows, maybe the Breeding and Pest Control section will have books pertaining
to your... vermin problem."

Vermin,
huh. Naruto didn't know if he was feeling amused respect, or offended annoyance
more. Perhaps both. If he got the chance, he would kill Jiraiya cleanly; the
old man deserved that much.

... Kyuubi.
Kyuubi didn't know. Not Naruto. Fuck. Naruto closed his eyes, and shoved the
startled, bristling demon fox away; it hurt, they were too entangled to
separate that fast. But he didn't want Kyuubi's stray thoughts in his head. The
fox's deliberate comments were unnerving enough.

... Library.
Pest control section. Alright. "I'll go and check."

"Be
sure to do that. We wouldn't want said pest to run free around Konoha, now
would we."�

... Ack. His blooming headache didn't help his thought process
much; but the comment was blatant enough that Naruto couldn't miss that Jiraiya
wasn't bothering to pretend they were still talking about Akatsuki anymore.
Oops. His little 'restricted -- er, I mean
specialized' quip was probably too obvious to allow for even a second of
misinterpretation.

Well, um.
At least it probably meant no one was listening, or else Jiraiya would have
looked more than slightly annoyed. Right? Right.

God, his
head hurt, and there was too much light. He squinted, grinned sheepishly at
Jiraiya; this time he made sure to keep his lips sealed.

"Any
other advice, old man?"

Jiraiya
gave him a serious look. "The Uchiha district already has protective
barriers ready to go all around its walls; they would take some time and
determination to breach. From the inside, or from the outside. Use them."

Naruto
nodded, subdued. Not being interrupted without warning was good. Making sure
that the villagers were safe was better. Breaching the barrier would take some
time, time enough for Tsunade and the ANBU to get there, perhaps time enough to
evacuate. Better than doing it in the forest; distance wouldn't help much,
Kyuubi was more than vindictive enough to trek through a few countries to get
back to Konoha.

They stood
there, by the window; and then Jiraiya reached out and ruffled Naruto's hair,
hard enough to make Naruto's head move with it.

"Ow! Leave my hair alone, old man!"

"You
should get going now, you cheeky brat. Oh -- don't forget: banzai!"

Naruto
folded in two over Jiraiya's hand, breath knocked out of him. Wheezing, he
glared up at the old man and stepped back, rubbing his stomach. "What the
hell did you do that for?!"

Jiraiya
laughed. "No reason, just for old times' sake. Everything works better if
you're relaxed! Especially the mixing of chakra. And I hear Tsunade coming
back..."

Naruto
whirled around and listened. Oh, damn. Heels stomping in the corridor. He was
going to have a hard time replacing the scroll without her noticing; he'd
already been lucky the first time. He turned back to face Jiraiya, who was
leaning against the windowsill once again. "I gotta
go, the old hag wants me to clean her office--"

Jiraiya
looked amused. "How convenient."

"--
and she's gonna bitch if I'm not even started... er.
Yeah, I guess." Naruto squirmed guiltily.

"Perhaps
you're not entirely hopeless," Jiraiya commented as he turned to face him.

Naruto
started smiling awkwardly, flattered.

"...
Or perhaps you just got lucky." Jiraiya was holding a blue and white book,
one Naruto had been damn sure was safely tucked away in his jacket. Naruto felt
his pocket; the green scroll was still there, but his zipper was open. Argh! Stupid banzai trick.

"Get
going, and don't forget to go to the library when you're done here. I'll give
this back to Kakashi."

Oh, damn it. Was there anything, anything at
all the old pervert didn't know? ... Kakashi probably knew, too. Hell, he'd
probably told the old pervert about the missing book in the first place. Bunch
of sneaky, meddling bastards.

It was a
good thing they were on Team Seven's side.

Naruto
sighed, chuckled despite himself, and waved jauntily at Jiraiya as he walked
out of the meeting room.

+

Setting up
the seal, in Naruto's humble opinion, should have trumped cleaning the house a
hundred times over.

Apparently
the first was an excellent reason to get the second done.

"I
don't understand why I've got to clean up both bedrooms upstairs!" Naruto
groused as he stomped back down the staircase with a bucket full of dirty water
in hand.

Sakura
looked up from her scrolls and sighed at him. "Because there's a layer of
dust we could use as a mattress in there."

"It's
not that bad, really." Naruto opened a window, leaned out to check that
Sasuke wasn't anywhere in sight this time, and dumped the contents of the
bucket on the wilted flowerbeds underneath. "And beside we're not even
using them. I mean, I wouldn't mind if it was going to be our bedroom, but
they're barely big enough to fit two people and even then, the people will have
to be real friendly, if you catch my drift."

"Since
when do you mind that?" Sakura replied with a chuckle and a roll of her
eyes.

"Well,
I don't, but sometimes I like to sprawl all over the place. And what are we
gonna do in summer? We'll roast alive."

"We
could put futons on the gallery," she suggested, wistful. "I've heard
that people with traditional houses do that."

"Bah.
Sasuke won't. This gallery's turned toward the street. We'll be too
exposed."

Sakura
sighed. "Mmn."

"Yeah,"
Naruto commiserated, even though he didn't know what was so special about
sleeping in the gallery.

"Yeah...
Are you done cleaning yet?"

Naruto
grimaced, and waved the empty bucket around in annoyance. "I thought we
agreed that it was useless! And boring! But especially useless. We're not gonna
sleep there, and we're going to do the seal thing in the dojo anyway."

Sakura
glowered at him. "Well it needs to be done anyway, doesn't it? I'm not
going to live in a house where there are doors you never open for fear of being
eaten by a mutated dust bunny."

"Or
buried alive under a landslide of broken things?" Naruto continued,
chuckling.

"Or
poisoned by a ramen packet that someone stacked in a damp corner."

Naruto
stuck out his tongue at Sasuke, who was leaning against the door to the
corridor and watching them. "It's not my fault it's damp everywhere in the
kitchen."

"It's
not like it's going to stay there long enough to get moldy anyway," Sakura
commented with a little laugh. "Did you need something, Sasuke?"

"Hm. Know where I can find a stepladder?"

Naruto
scoffed. He wasn't giving up his. "Hey, you're a ninja, be creative."

"I
don't feel like being creative with a bucket of paint in hand and my feet stuck
to a rotting ceiling."

"...
Man. The ceiling's rotting too?"

Sasuke
shrugged. "Probably. I'm not about to test it out." He pushed off
from the wall and stepped onto the first step of the staircase.

Naruto
yelped a protest. "Hey! You're not taking my ladder!"

"Ah!
So you DO have one!" Sakura pointed at him, accusing.

"...
Well... Yeah. But I'm using it, damn it."

Sasuke
rolled his eyes and started walking up the stairs again. "You're a ninja,
be creative."

"Asshole!"

"The
bedroom ceilings are a lot lower than the dojo's. You
don't need it. I do."

Naruto
huffed and crossed his arms on his chest, glaring death at Sasuke's retreating
back. Sakura giggled into her hand; he pouted at her. "Mean."

"Don't
be a baby, Naruto." Sakura rolled her scroll, stashed it to the side,
picked up a sheet of paper covered in scribbles, and got up.

"What's
that?"

"Oh,
just containment seals to apply on the walls. They're not really necessary, but
better safe than sorry, right?"

Naruto's
smile softened a bit. No chance was too insignificant to bother with, huh.
"You just want an excuse to have a romantic moment with Sasuke
again."

She
startled, freezing in her tracks. "What? I didn't --"

Oh, hell,
now she looked guilty. Stupid! "Uh huh. And all those study dates were
platonic, eh?" he asked, leaning closer and nudging her in the ribs
knowingly. "You, him... A shiny scroll full of weird techniques..."

Now she was
pouting. Naruto's grin widened.

"Aha!
So nothing's ever happened? Oh, man, he sucks. Poor Sakura-chan, your other
boyfriend is a eunuch. Don't worry, I'll give you all the lovin'
you need."

She caught
sight of his waggling eyebrows, and burst out in scandalized laughter.
"Oh, that's horrible! He's not."

Naruto
stared at her dubiously.

"...
I'm pretty sure he's not."

"Well,
's good that one of us is sure, then," Naruto grinned.

"That's
cruel." She sobered up. "Nothing has ever happened with him -- well,
I mean, it was so -- so nice to have an occasion to talk with him like this,
you know? So stimulating -- intellectually
stimulating," she rectified as she caught Naruto's leer, "and I
really do feel like we became a little closer... and it's really nice to know
that he has such a high opinion of my intelligence..."

"But
no making out."

Sakura
reddened, and her shoulders slumped. "... Well... No."

Naruto
chuckled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against his side.
"For such a smart girl, you're really silly sometimes."

"Hey!
How come?"

"Well
if you're waiting on HIM to make the first move, you're gonna die an old maid.
No, seriously, I love the bastard to death, but he's frigid like somebody's
great-grandmother. He's not just gonna wake up and say 'Oh hey, wanna go on a date'. So next time, you should MAKE it into
a date!"

Sakura
blinked at him. "Make it...?"

"No,
seriously. Start it. Molest him! He secretly loves it -- OW."

Sasuke had
just brained him with the stepladder. The Uchiha didn't stop for so little; he
kept stomping down the stairs and past the two of them, scowling and refusing
to look their way. Naruto rubbed his head and glared at his back.

"Really
should get laid more often."

Sakura
shook her head, chuckling tiredly. "I should get back to work now. Thank
you," she added, with a little smile, and a quick kiss to the corner of
his mouth that made him grin goofily and forget his bump.

He watched
her follow Sasuke through the door, and then sighed heavily, shook his head,
and made his way upstairs.

+

The
bedroom, as it turned out, had a window. And that window, as it turned out,
opened just over an air vent for the dojo.

He didn't
notice until he had washed most of the ceiling -- clinging to the walls with
his dirty shoes, oops, but that wallpaper was ugly anyway -- and leaned against
the open window's edge, as he tried to figure out how to reach the center of
the ceiling without leaving muddy footprints on the damp tiles. But there was
really no way he could miss Sakura's faintly muffled, but yet perfectly
audible, "So... about that date..."

From that
moment on, all thoughts of the dirty ring in the middle of the ceiling where
henceforth abandoned.

Sadly, for
a disappointingly long time, he only heard silence.

"...
What?"

'Sasuke, you fucktard,' Naruto thought charitably, 'mess it up and die.' Sakura had to be
pretty embarrassed at being caught talking about Sasuke behind his back. So,
that she would even ask was something. A kinda big
something.

"Well,
you know... He was teasing, but -- maybe the idea has some merit, don't you
think so?"

Sasuke
grunted, or maybe he said something, but he was too far from the vent to hear
the words. Naruto grumbled under his breath.

Sakura
chuckled; her voice echoed a little, as if she were facing away from the wall
now. "Somehow I don't see you enjoying an evening at the movies or at the
karaoke bar all that much, anyway."

"... Heh. Depends on the movie, I guess." A moment of
silence. "Research in tandem isn't much of a date, though," Sasuke
added reluctantly.

There were
a few scrapping sounds -- preparing the walls for paint, maybe? Sasuke dragging
the stolen stepladder around? Naruto couldn't tell.

"You
know, I used to think that real dates would be being taken out to outrageously
expensive restaurants and showered with roses. And then we would go clubbing.
And you would say 'You are the woman of my dreams' or 'I don't know how I lived
so long without you by my side' every ten minutes, at least."

She
chuckled softly; Naruto bit his lip, and imagined the expression that went with
that gentle, amused tone. It made him smile, too; a little ruefully, but tender
above all.

"But I
don't even like to dance all that much, and I think if you ever say something
so horribly sappy to me, I'll have to check for genjutsu. I mean -- it probably
would make me... Feel nice, but I know better now -- it wouldn't be natural for
you. You're not really the kind to say things like that, and it isn't fair to
expect you to be."

Her voice
softened, barely a whisper. Naruto had to strain to hear it.

"But
whenever you say something, I know it's the truth. And when you know there's something beyond your ability to figure out
and you just expect me to figure it out for you -- I wouldn't trade that feeling
for anything."

"...Sakura..."

"I
mean it, you know. You're really smart, and you just -- you always need to do
things on your own, and yet you ask me anyway, like you don't even need to
wonder if perhaps I can't figure it out. I just wish you could trust me that
much in battle. But I'll train, you'll see. And then -- and then..."

Ack! And
then what? Naruto leaned a little more, trying to catch any sound that could
clue him in as to what was going on, and ended up sticking to the outside wall
desperately as he overbalanced. By the time he managed to scramble back inside
the room, there was nothing else to listen to. He didn't have a clue whether
they were kissing, or hugging, or ignoring each other in awkward silence.
Perhaps they had simply moved away from the vent.

He probably
shouldn't spy on them anyway, shouldn't begrudge their moments alone; but
sometimes he got worried. The two of them always over-thought everything, and
Sasuke could hurt Sakura-chan all too easily -- she always hoped for so much,
and he didn't like emotional expectations.

Sometimes
Naruto wondered what would happen if Sasuke started to feel for Sakura like
Naruto himself did. He would be happy for them, he knew he would; and they
would still love him, and need him there to be their friend. But he didn't know
if he would still be necessary as anything but
their friend. There was the child to think of, true, but Naruto didn't like the
idea of using him or her as a guarantee. Naruto should be with Sakura and
Sasuke because they loved him, not because it was better for the child. If the
kid was his -- well. He could still be a dad and a friend without being shacked
up with them.

He would
miss them, though, now that he had an idea of what it was like to be with them.

Naruto knew
that he was supposed to save as much chakra as he could, just in case, but
surely one little Kage Bunshin wouldn't hurt, and
they made okay temporary stepladders. He picked up his brush, climbed on his
clone's back, and started scrubbing at the dirty ceiling again. If he got done
soon enough, maybe he could check on how well they were doing.

+

Naruto's
quick check revealed them standing side by side in front of the far wall and
pointing stuff at each other. The tone of their low voices indicated more seal
talk, which made him groan; but Sakura-chan's left
hand was cupping Sasuke's right elbow, and when he reached up to fix the curve
of the preliminary sketch, he did it with his left hand instead of pulling
away. Good boy.

Must be
nice to be ambidextrous, Naruto reflected as he returned upstairs. Sasuke
didn't use his left hand often outside of battle, but with a little prompting,
Naruto was sure there were plenty of uses they could get out of it.

Entertaining
himself with dirty thoughts, he went back to work on the next room. He knew
that Sakura was tired often, and Sasuke was a frigid bitch, but really, this
time! The second they were in the clear, he would jump them both. It had been way too long, and wasn't it ridiculous
to jerk off so often to fantasies of them both when he could have just reached
out and touched? Yes. Yes it was. It was completely ridiculous, and he was done
suffering from blue balls night after night. And he wouldn't let them wriggle
out of it again!

"Are
you trying to clean this table out of existence?"

Naruto
blinked down at the table, and then up at Sasuke, who was standing in the
doorway with an eyebrow arched. Naruto glared at him; Sasuke blinked slowly, as
if he didn't know that he was a cock-teasing bastard-prude.

"So,
how was the mini-date?"

Sasuke
grimaced briefly. "It wasn't a date at all."

"What,
no kisses?" Naruto demanded, aghast.

Sasuke
briefly looked embarrassed, and then glared at Naruto. "If a kiss is
enough for you to make anything into a date..."

Aha! So
they had. "Nah, but it's a good start." Naruto grinned back, and let
go of his cleaning rag so he could reach out and pat Sasuke's head in approval.
"Good boy."

Sasuke
dodged, of course, and slapped his hand away. "Don't start, I'm not in the
mood. Come on."

He turned
on his heels and stepped away. Naruto made a face, confused. "Going where?
Doing what? I thought you didn't need me in the dojo just yet."

"No,
outside. I'm going to put up the barrier."

"Oh.
Alright." Naruto wiped his hands on the rag and followed him down the
stairs. "What do you need me for?"

Sasuke
shrugged. "Check the houses, look for intruders."

"...
Why would there be intruders?"

Sasuke gave
him a sidelong glance as he paused before the front door. "Apart from the
two old meddlers? Yesterday you weren't under watch, as far as I know. We don't
know if you are today."

Naruto
huffed at the reminder. "I wish they'd stop tailing me all over the place
at random." Well, really, he wished they would just stop tailing him completely,
but if he couldn't have that, it would be nice to KNOW when they were tailing
him at least. But then that probably defeated the purpose of putting him under
watch.

"You're
not going to get that for a while after tonight," Sasuke pointed out
cynically, and opened the door.

"Yeah,
but hiding a conspiracy's harder. When I sex you up, I'll only need to close
the blinds for privacy."

Sasuke
twitched and his head whipped around to glare at him. "What?"

Naruto
grinned, hands joined behind his head as he started strolling down the street,
keeping an eye out for intruders. "Well, I wouldn't want to shock little
grandmas with eagle eyes who were innocently doing their laundry at the other
end of Konoha, right? They could get a heart attack, or something. It would be
a real massacre! All over the village, grandmas falling dead from the
shock."

Sasuke
growled, a muscle in his jaw jumping. "Sex, sex, and sex. Do you ever
think about anything else?"

"Yep.
Fighting. Betcha 'bout half of the grandmas would be
found with smiles on their lips. That's the way I want to go, I think. Spying
on good sex, if I can't kick the bucket by having good sex myself."

"Naruto..."

"Yeah,
dying on the battlefield sounds good on paper, but really, death by sex is the
way to go."

"Naruto. Don't make me kick you in the
face."

Naruto
laughed at his grouchy tone and faintly twitching eyebrow. "Spoilsport.
You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were shy. Hell, you'd give
Hinata-chan a run for her money. At least, even if she wasn't direct about it,
she still asked for what she wanted." He was going to end his tirade with
'and you want sex, repression-boy, but you'd die before asking for it', but
Sasuke interrupted him.

"Wait.
She asked you out?"

Naruto made
a face as the conversation was redirected. He hadn't meant for it to go down
that way. "Kinda, yeah."

Sasuke's
eyes narrowed. "Really."

Naruto
turned away from the building he was surveying to give all his attention to
Sasuke. He really hadn't expected that tone from him. "Not now! It was at least two years ago. She
wasn't even dating Kiba yet."

Sasuke gave
a dismissive grunt; Naruto rolled his eyes. Of course Sasuke wouldn't care
about Hinata-chan's love life, not even because he
knew Naruto did. Sasuke only cared that she didn't ... er.
Wait. Sasuke, possessive?

"You
were so obsessed with girls back then, it's strange you didn't jump on the
occasion."

"Heh. Thought about it, but... no one likes being 'instead
of', you know? Hinata-chan would have known I still liked Sakura-chan
best." He grinned, suddenly, and nudged Sasuke's side with his elbow.
"Besides, I just knew Sakura-chan would notice I'm supposed to be the man
of her dreams, eventually. And I was right."

Sasuke
arched an eyebrow and regarded him coolly. "Are you?"

Ow.
Bastard. He knew Sakura still loved Sasuke best, there was no need to rub it
in. "Well, sorta, yeah." A pause; a grin.
"One of the men of her dreams, at least."

Sasuke turned
away.

Naruto
chuckled warmly, and nudged him again. "You know, I think I like it better
this way." He didn't have to be 'instead of'; and he didn't have to lose
Sasuke either. Infinitely better. "So, how was that kiss?"

Sasuke
glared, again. "Exhibitionist, and now voyeur. Why am I not
surprised."

"Hey!
You make it sound like I'm perverted -- oh wait."

Sasuke
rolled his eyes. "Stop clowning around."

Naruto
stuck his tongue out at him, but did as suggested. They had a job to do.

They
separated when they reached the wall; Naruto wandered through the compound,
looking for intruders, as Sasuke stopped, and touched things, and frowned a
lot. Naruto suspected him of not knowing exactly where the trigger tags were
situated. Sasuke advanced slowly; Naruto searched in an S pattern so that he
would come back to the outer wall regularly, and always ended up close enough
that he could strike up another bout of conversation.

Mostly, it
was naughty stuff, but Sasuke took to completely ignoring him, and since the
only other living things Naruto had found so far were stray cats and rodents,
it got a bit boring.

So when, on
his next sweep, he noticed that Sasuke was now methodically smearing blood on
an old tree, he just had to pause and stare. "What are you doing?"

"Activating,"
Sasuke replied absently as he shaped a hand seal. "Did you find
anyone?"

"Just
a mama cat and her kittens. I'm not chasing them off; she'd eat me."

"Hm."

Sasuke
really didn't sound all that interested, in either the cats or the
conversation. Naruto sighed heavily. Well, maybe if he wouldn't chat about
random things, he would talk about the barrier. "So... Does this thing
work with anyone's blood, or just an Uchiha's?"

"Just
an Uchiha's," Sasuke replied distractedly. A
kanji lit up on the bark, gleamed briefly and disappeared; Sasuke leaned back,
regarding the spot in silence for a few seconds before he turned away,
apparently satisfied.

Sasuke
proceeded to the next segment of wall; Naruto went back to his patrol for
another loop, dragging his feet a bit. If there really was someone else inside
the compound, and they were good, Naruto wasn't about to find them that easily.
If they were smart, they'd be following the two of them, or else staked out by
the house. Still... perhaps he'd get lucky.

When he
came across Sasuke again, Sasuke was smearing more blood onto yet another tree.
Naruto tilted his head. "Er. Are they all stuck
to trees? Why not the walls?"

Sasuke
shrugged. "There are mirroring tags hidden on the walls, but the trees are
the ones stocking chakra."

Naruto
joined him and peered up at the tree. "Oh. Kinda
cool that you don't have to power it yourself, but how the hell does that work?
Trees aren't really alive -- or they can't produce chakra at least."

Sasuke
rolled his eyes. "How do exploding tags explode? They're just paper and
ink."

Naruto
scratched his head. "... Wait, I knew this. I think."

Sasuke
rolled his eyes, again; Naruto kicked at him, and was disgruntled when he
dodged.

"As
long as they work, why should I remember how they make them? It's not like I
could make mine anyway, I'm a field ninja, not a... tag-supplier ninja or
something."

Sasuke gave
him a look that meant 'Why do I always get dragged into the stupidest
conversations with you?' "They're infused with chakra, and then a simple
spell is applied to them with special ink. It's the same chakra and ink for any
type of tag -- fire, smoke, flash -- but the spell makes the effect different.
The trees work on the same basic principle."

"...
Duh. So then why doesn't everyone do this? Use trees?"

Sasuke
hummed thoughtfully. "I suspect some do -- there must be a reason why
Konoha has trees growing everywhere. But it's not as easy as that."

Naruto
looked curiously at Sasuke and his sudden, suspicious lack of scowl. These
days, it was rare when he didn't sound put-upon when he had to explain
something to Naruto. The whole mess didn't improve anyone's mood or patience,
and Sasuke already didn't have a lot to spare. Naruto found himself loath to
waste this sudden mood shift.

They
strolled down the street in companionable silence; Naruto watched Sasuke as he
cut his fingertip open with a kunai and did his thing with the next tree.
Naruto felt a little at a loss, though; it was just plain weird that Sasuke
hadn't yet pointed out that Naruto wasn't doing his part of the job. "If
there's anyone out here, I'm not gonna find them," he justified guiltily.

Sasuke
nodded, and looked unsurprised. "Of course."

"...Of
course?" Naruto made a face. "Hey, why did you ask me to come along
if I was gonna be useless?"

Sasuke
turned away and started walking again; for a few seconds he didn't answer, and
Naruto frowned. What, no snipping back?

The silence
didn't feel companionable, so much as ominous, suddenly.

"I put
you down as my next of kin."

Naruto
stopped dead in his tracks. "... What?"

His back
still on Naruto, Sasuke snorted, and his voice turned insultingly slow and
deliberate. "If I die, you get my stuff."

Snarling,
Naruto jumped forward and grabbed Sasuke's shoulder, forcing him to turn around
to face him. "What the fuck?! I
thought we had the whole seal thing under control -- you and Sakura said it
wasn't very dangerous after all!"

Sasuke's
face seemed carved in stone. "If we're cautious, and if nothing unexpected
happens, it's not dangerous. It's just in case, Naruto."

Naruto
grabbed Sasuke's collar with both hands and gave him a shake. "No, not
'just in case'! You're not dying ever, so shut the fuck up! What the hell,
we'll just find another way--"

Sasuke
snaked an arm under Naruto's and mirrored his hold, tugging him even closer so
he could snarl in his face. "It is NOT that dangerous, and I didn't tell
you just so you could freak out on me! I don't plan on dying. I know we can make it work, and we're
going to. Alright? Shut up."

Naruto
tightened his grip, teeth bared. "So why are you telling me this now?"

"Because
if I die at some point, and the child isn't mine, I want you to raze this compound to the ground. Don't
allow anyone to take anything from it. Just raze it. And then sell it, or
rebuild a little house for you and Sakura, or whatever. Hell, you can turn it
into an amusement park if you want to, for all I care."

Naruto
loosened his double hold on Sasuke's collar; he didn't let go, though, because
this was probably as close to a bear hug as the bastard would ever let him get.
"Damn it, Sasuke..."

The Uchiha
looked away, leaned back. "I know some people stole furniture and random
crap from people's houses before. It's disgusting, but it doesn't matter. I
just don't want the compound to stand here like a ghost town, until the village
decides that my corpse is cool enough for them to start looting it for clan
secrets."

"Sasuke,
you dumb fuck." Naruto reeled him right back in his personal space, leaned
even closer, forehead to forehead. And then he smiled, even if the very thought
hurt. "Sure. I'll make everything go up in flames. You goddamn pyro asshole."

He didn't
let go for a few seconds; just looked into Sasuke's eyes and watched him stare
back. He thought about saying something -- 'sure, you rat bastard, anything for
you'. Perhaps 'I'll die before I let you check out on me.' Perhaps even 'you're
so far under my skin you'll tear me up if you leave now. So don't. Just don't'.
Maybe 'I love you', but then again, maybe not quite, he didn't know.

And then,
reluctantly, he let go.

"With
our luck the kid will be yours, just you wait and see. And I'm not teaching him
or her Katon."

Sasuke's
eyes narrowed; not seriously, though. "Really."

"Nah,
Katon sucks," Naruto retorted as he crossed his hands behind his head and
grinned. "I'll teach her Kage Bunshin and
Rasengan -- that's way more than enough to get out of anything."

Sasuke
rolled his eyes; he was smirking. "One trick-pony."

"Hey,
pony yourself! I know way more than one trick."

"You're
right. Two-tricks pony."

"You're
just jealous, because you've got to remember tons of tiny things that don't
even work half the time, but MY techniques are always enough to get out of
everything!"

Sasuke's
smirk widened slightly. "Except when they aren't."

"Oh,
shut up!"

A moment of
silence.

"...Pony."

Naruto
tried to snap back something, prove Sasuke wrong and win the stupid argument,
he really did; but he was laughing too hard for it to come through.

+

/It's time./

Naruto cast
a long look at the Uchiha compound, at the village sprawling behind its gates.
The barrier shimmered there, just barely visible in the night sky.

Naruto
raked his claws on the tiles idly. 'You
in a hurry, furball?'

/It would be a waste to come so far for
nothing, wouldn't it./

Naruto
chuckled, watching the moon. It peeked over the forest in the distance,
perfectly full. 'Still don't understand
jack shit to that elemental resonance thing.'

/You humans and your science. Laws for
everything that dares to exist, everything deconstructed into cold, smooth
little blocks of meaning that end up not meaning anything at all./

Naruto
stretched his arms and back, didn't bother straightening up from his crouch;
skidded-slunk down the roof, like a cat down a toboggan. 'You don't know why it works either, do you.'

/I know it works. That's enough./

Naruto
caught himself on the gutter before he plunged over the edge, gave the rising
moon a last look. 'Better hope it does.
Because if it doesn't...'

He didn't
finish his thought; he didn't need to. If the backlash hurt -- killed -- Sasuke
and Sakura, Naruto would turn himself in to the ANBU on his own. If Kyuubi was
playing him, aiming for a hidden loophole, Naruto would kill himself before the
fox went anywhere and then they'd both die.

/If your bitches haven't messed up, there won't
be a backlash./

'You're not commenting on the loophole, I see.'

Naruto felt
Kyuubi's muzzle stretch over fangs in a parody of smile -- or perhaps it was
his own face; he couldn't tell, they were that close. There was no reply; he
hadn't really expected one anyway. He snorted, and rolled over the edge of the
roof, landing soundlessly on the gallery below.

The house
was dark, the makeshift bed in the living room made with military precision. He
wanted to ruffle it, but that could wait, just a little while longer.

The dojo
was well-lit; enough so that when he opened the connecting door, he ended up
squinting, pupils constricting painfully.

Sakura and
Sasuke were standing face to face in a corner; him with ink on his hands and
tension in his shoulders, her wrapped up in a light robe as if it was the only
thing between her and a snowstorm. They were both doing that
not-quite-looking-at-you thing; Naruto stalked closer, intrigued and vaguely
frustrated. They better not be once again talking to death everything bad that
could ever happen.

"Ah,
Naruto." Sakura smiled at him, unconvincingly. And she was so beautiful
and so worried and he'd kill to make sure she was alright, because she was his. He'd kill to have her smile at him
for real, from the heart.

Naruto
didn't really want to bother saying anything back; he forced himself anyway,
grinning just as unconvincingly. "This wall dry?"

"Um,
yes--"

He caught
her shoulders when she was still asking 'why?', pushed her back against the
inked lines and loops on the wooden wall, and kissed her, hard and hungry. It
wasn't all him and he knew it -- they both did, him and the fox -- but it
didn't matter. She was his, his to protect and to love, and if he couldn't make
her smile true for him, he could make her respond much more truly.

Her
startled little yelp made him purr, and her confused moan was all the surrender
he needed.

When Sasuke
sneered something about how unnecessary it had been to shoulder him out of the
way like that, Naruto broke the kiss with Sakura just so he could slam Sasuke
against the other wall of the corner and silence him properly. With tongue. And
teeth.

This time
he didn't expect a surrender, and didn't get it anyway. He liked it better like
that.

Then he
stepped back, one hand on each wall, corralling them in the corner, and grinned
fangily. "No angst now. Forbidden. I'll bite you
if you start the 'woe, what if' routine."

Sasuke
sneered, unimpressed; Sakura pouted, and pretended that her lips and cheeks
weren't still flushed from his kiss. "... You're a pest."

"You're
too gloomy. We don't need two Sasukes in the team. So
stop it, alright? Or I'll kiss you again."

Sakura
laughed, a bit shakily. "Oh no, please, not the kisses, I'll do
anything."

Sasuke
snorted faintly; Naruto glanced at him, vaguely surprised by his willingness to
allow Naruto to box him in. Sasuke didn't say anything, though; he just stared
back. He seemed a little annoyed, but Naruto couldn't tell if it was at one or
both of his teammates, or at himself, or all three. Naruto didn't smile for
him, because Sasuke didn't need it; he needed to know that Naruto was
determined to carry their plan through.

"Hey,
Naruto... You're..." Sakura trailed off, but her meaning was clear enough,
as clear as the way she was staring at his face -- fangs and slit pupils and widened
whiskers marks, no doubt.

Naruto
shrugged and smiled at her. "Foxy? Yep. It's alright." He stepped
back, freeing them. "Okay, let's do it. ...Oh hey, Sakura-chan," he
added, leering at her, and her hands, clenched on the edges of her robe,
"I didn't realize you needed to get naked. Niiiice."

Sakura
recovered enough to glare at him; he grinned back, approving.

"I'm
not naked." Huffing, she stepped toward the middle of the dojo, muttering
under her breath as her stiff fingers fought with her belt. "I couldn't
take a naked ritual seriously, anyway. I would be too embarrassed to do
anything but giggle."

Naruto
followed, throwing his shirt in a corner and taking his place on the symbol
that mirrored hers. "Whaaat? You'd look awesome.
Like a priestess of arcane... stuff. Powers beyond man's understanding, and all
that bull. What do they call it, skyclad? Yeah, you'd
look all kinds of nice, naked under the stars."

She rolled
her eyes as she took off the robe, revealing a plain sports bra and her usual
black biker shorts. They looked a lot nicer with no skirt to obstruct the view.

"I'm a
bit out of date as a virgin sacrifice, you know."

"It's
alright," Naruto retorted as he stretched his legs and leaned back on his
hands casually. "We can sacrifice Sasuke. He's not a virgin either, but
the way he acts, I'm sure no one will be able to tell the difference."

Sasuke
scowled at him over the edge of the ink bowl where he was mixing in more of his
blood. "Oh, go to hell. You talk like you're a slut, but you don't have
any more experience than I do."

Naruto
snorted, teeth bared in a hard grin. He didn't remember whether Sasuke had
Sakura before or after Naruto took him, but first lover or not, Naruto had been
Sasuke's first guy; and knowing the misanthropic bastard like he did, Naruto
was pretty sure he'd be Sasuke's last even if Naruto died tomorrow. "Sure
I do."

"Porn
magazines don't count as experience. If that were the case, every prepubescent
brat raiding his parents' closet for a laugh would be a sex guru."

In that
light, memories of Kyuubi's sex life probably didn't count either, even if he
remembered way too many sounds, scents, and feelings to compare simple
photographs to them. He grinned anyway, with even more teeth. "I got a
blowjob once. Top that, bitch."

Sasuke just
stared at him, the brush he was using to mix the ink coming to a stop. Naruto's
fangy grin widened.

"You
can't, eh? Ha! I win."

Sasuke
started mixing his stuff again. "I'm trying to figure out who would get
anywhere close to your dick of their own will, but it's not computing."

Naruto
snuck a glance at Sakura. She was sitting in her spot and biting her lip, and
didn't seem inclined to say anything. Damn. Naruto had hoped she would
interrupt them. He grumbled under his breath, "It was a prostitute, during
a trip with Jiraiya."

Sasuke
smirked thinly, like he didn't need to add anything to that.

Naruto
growled. "Shut up, I still win."

"Um,
guys, can we--"

"Like
hell you win, you had to pay someone."

"Hey!
I didn't ask her, she was the one who started it!"

"Because
she could tell you were an easy mark!"

"Neither of you wins."

Silence
fell in the dojo.

For a
little while, at least. "... Uh. What?"

Sakura's
cheeks were red, but she didn't back down; if anything, she glared even harder.
"Neither of you wins, because I do. There, are you happy? I know I am. I
always wanted to win a game of 'Who has the biggest penis'." She didn't
need to tack on an 'idiots' at the end; her tone came through clear enough.

Naruto was still
trying to decide whether to be jealous, or ruefully amused, when Kyuubi purred
out an appreciative laugh. /And now your
pink slut only lacks a set of balls to be manlier than your bitch./

Sasuke
wasn't so amused. "Wait a minute here. You had sex before -- and you never
said anything?"

Sakura
sighed wearily. "Listen, it isn't that I'm not happy you're
jealous--"

Sasuke
twitched. "I'm not--"

"...But
this really isn't anything we have time to debate now. All you need to know is
that it wasn't anyone from Konoha, and he really, really doesn't matter
anymore, didn't even matter as much as I thought back then, and hasn't mattered
at all for years. Now can we please get a move on -- preferably before the
sun rises? The moon isn't going to wait for us."

Sasuke
closed his eyes, and then sighed, deep and slow. Naruto relaxed; Sasuke still
didn't look very happy, but apparently the touch of urgency in Sakura's voice
had reached him.

"Alright.
Later," Sasuke capitulated.

Still on
edge, Sakura nodded quickly, hands flitting nervously all over the place.
"Yes, yes, afterwards, anything you want to know--"

"The size
of his wang?"

"Naruto!"

Naruto
grinned. Panic successfully avoided. "Gotta
reassure Sasuke that he's bigger, after all."

Sasuke
sneered. "I don't have your insecurities, nor your reason to have
them."

"Oi--"

This time
Sakura didn't need to say anything; her discouraged slump was obvious enough.
Naruto sighed in irritation; but he would /fuck/
pummel Sasuke into the ground later.

"Okay,
yeah, we're done. Let's get started."

Sasuke's
eyebrow twitched at that, but only rolled his eyes briefly and didn't retort
anything.

Sakura took
a deep breath, and lay down on her back, squirming a little to make herself
comfortable on the wooden floor, lifted up her hips to roll down the waistband
of her shorts -- Naruto expected a flash of pink curls any second now, but she
stopped just before that. Sasuke moved from his cross-legged position to a more
formal one, kneeling at her side, back ramrod straight, knees slightly apart.
Naruto thought of samurais, and vaguely regretted the T-shirt Sasuke was
wearing; formal kimono would have suited him better right now.

Sakura
folded her arms to keep them out of Sasuke's way and smiled up bravely.
"I'm ready."

"Alright,"
he replied, brushing his fingers against her arm discreetly.

Naruto
propped himself up on his elbow, and watched as Sasuke leaned over Sakura and
lifted the brush out of its bowl. Thick black ink dripped on her bare stomach;
Naruto purred quietly when the tip of the brush dipped into the ink, and
started to glide around her navel with deliberate slowness.

Sasuke
started with a spiral reminiscent of Naruto's own, following it with lines of
symbols that crawled their way down her hips and sides, connecting her to the
array on the floor. The wet, glistening trail highlighted the gentle curves of
her body. Sasuke's hand was steady, strangely elegant, like the angle of his
jaw and neck.

"Naruto."
Sasuke's tone was absent; he didn't look at the blond. "You should try to
meditate. Make sure your chakra flows properly."

Naruto
frowned. It was hard to mix his chakra and watch the scenery. But if they
thought it would be better... Grumbling, he gave the tableau a last look and
lay down.

On the
ceiling, just overhead, there was a quickly penciled doodle of a man, with
little schematics of how far apart he should put his feet and where his elbows
were allowed to be; it surprised a laugh out of Naruto.

"Hmm?"

"Oh,
Sakura-chan, you should be an artist," he teased as he obligingly copied
the indicated position.

"What
-- oh, that..."

She sounded
like she was blushing. Perhaps she would have said more, but Sasuke shushed
her; talking made her body move, and he was still painting. Naruto relaxed,
contemplating the little fellow. He had a zigzag for hair and actual whiskers
that poked out of the sides of his round face.

"Pretty
sure my eyes aren't that beady, though."

Sakura
stifled a snicker; Sasuke huffed quietly, though he didn't look up.
"Naruto... Meditate. You need to be able to control the surge of demonic
chakra when we make the connection."

"Yeah,
yeah."

He
meditated, making himself aware, first of the room -- Sakura and Sasuke's
breathing, the soft slide of the brush, the scents inside the dojo, of old sweat
and incense and ink, faded presences worn away to a few wisps he might have
been imagining -- and then of his body, the slow movement of his lungs and the
beat of his heart and the subtle, permanent tension in his muscles -- the way
each living cell produced chakra. Slowly, he started channeling that chakra
toward his center.

The rasp of
clothes and the bare feet padding toward him disturbed his concentration; he
opened an eye to see Sasuke leaning over him. "My turn already?"

"Yeah.
Shut up and don't move."

Naruto
snorted, but the calm from the meditation hadn't entirely left him yet. He
closed his eyes again, waiting for the first drop of paint.

It wasn't
really cold; but it wasn't warm either. It was kind of thick and a little
sticky. But then, what had he expected? It was ink and blood.

Sasuke had
lost a little too much blood today, between the paint and the barrier around
the district, and Naruto knew that Sakura couldn't use her chakra to fix him.
But he would hold on until the end; he was too stubborn not to.

"Put
your palms flat on the ground."

Naruto
obliged, and felt the brush travel up his chest and then down his arm in quick
little flicks. It felt weird, ticklish and wet, and too light a touch to do
anything but tease. He grinned anyway, eyes still closed. "Nice view,
huh?"

Sasuke
snorted. "Delightful. Let me concentrate."

Sasuke was
soon finished. Apart from connecting him to the array through his arms, there
wasn't much to paint on Naruto; the bulk of it was going to be on Sakura. Naruto
tracked Sasuke's progress away from him and to the corner reserved to the spellcaster through sound.

There was a
pause, where even Sakura's breathing stopped.

Sasuke
broke it first. "... Let's do this."

Naruto
chuckled. "Heh. We're waiting on you, bastard."

"This
is the stupidest idea we've ever had," Sakura commented from her own
corner.

Naruto's
smile widened. It hadn't been Sakura's idea at all; but here she was, ready to
gamble everything she had on it anyway. It hadn't been Sasuke's idea either,
though without him it would have stayed a silly flight of fancy.

He wasn't
going to let them down.

He sank
into himself, with the sound of their breathing and Sasuke's whispers stretching
behind him like a lifeline.

"...Dragon,
Snake, Hare, Rooster..."

Sasuke's
low voice buzzed in his ears, or perhaps it was the beat of his heart. Slow,
but strong; heavy. His chakra ebbed and flowed along with the ancient rhythm,
pooling at his center to mix a little red with blue, and then letting it spread
along his spine, his legs, his arms, up to the tips of his fingers -- and
farther. It was easy, like the tides -- ebb and flow, ebb and flow...

The
darkness under his eyelids slowly turned to green. He wasn't surprised. He took
a step toward the cage, water sloshing around his ankles. Fiery red bubbled to
the surface with each of his steps.

Their
steps.

Mirror.
Himself, standing behind the bars, at the edge of the endless dark. A blue glow
highlighting a spread of deep grooves on his cheeks. Crimson eyes. A wild,
reddish-gold mane. His face. His body, beyond which weaved and slithered nine
shadows.

"-- Snake, Ram, Rat --"

They took a
last step and paused, meeting their other's eyes, and for a few seconds weren't
sure on which side of the bars they were, or even whether that mattered.

What
mattered was the tail -- the power -- as it snaked through the bars, seeped
into his skin, mixed with his own life-force. And then it was his to control.
And a second tail; and a third. It was heady. It felt so right. A fourth,
slower, more reluctant -- and then he reached into the cage and pulled a fifth
away from his mirror image. They growled at each other, fangs bared.

"-- Ox, Dragon, Ox, Tiger --"

But there
was the child.

When the
fifth tail passed under his control, the red eyes' pupils turned round and the
scarred cheeks smoothed out.

He -- they
-- walked away from the cage, and his footfalls rang twice, and two shadows
followed on the green walls. A mountain of burnished fur, evil intent and raw
chakra lay still behind him, half-swallowed by the darkness.

"-- Dragon." Silence. "Naruto."

There was a
door now, on the opposite wall from the cage, where there had been none before;
a human-sized door covered in scribbles that hurt his eyes when he stared. He
opened it, watched the ankle-deep, chakra-infused water of his own cage-room
flow, spreading down the new corridor.

There was a
gate along the way -- a thick metal grill like one might find in a castle, that
wouldn't let a human arm pass, never mind a demon's paw.

Somewhere
beyond was his child.

He was at
the gate before he even wondered if he should, his double-steps echoing like a
stampede in the narrow corridor. But the child -- it had been starved of chakra
for so long. Was it still growing normally? Was it weakened -- stunted --
dying?

The gate
was heavy in his hands; but not heavy enough, once he used one of his tails to
brace himself. He pulled, fangs bared. His child. His, his, his. Like hell he would let them make it
some sickly little cripple.

He gave a last
grunt of effort, the thick, heavy metal bars digging into his hands.

And then
triumph -- and tearing, searing pain.

Naruto
stumbled alone in the water; and when he threw himself at the falling gate,
wisps of red chakra died in his empty hands. The green corridors were ringing
with the echoes of Kyuubi's run, and on the walls, his shadow danced, fox and
then man and then fox.

"No!"
Naruto raged, throwing himself on the barrier. It didn't bulge. He stumbled,
fell on one knee; everything hurt and was off-kilter and he couldn't think
right -- the baby, the baby -- his mate -- Sakura -- he could think enough.
Lifting -- he needed to lift it. Enough, just enough -- he stayed on his knees,
and when the gate was at chest-height he wriggled underneath and almost got a
foot snapped off and he didn't care, he was hunting.

His baby.
His mate. Couldn't let the demon hurt them -- how had he lied to Naruto? They'd
been one -- how had he hidden his true intent? How had Naruto missed it?

Up ahead
and all around, there was a woman's scream; and somewhere far beyond the green
corridors, Sasuke yelled and fell silent.

He ran. He
flew.

He arrived
too late.

There was a
slender figure crumpled in a faraway corner, curled up around a tiny,
fluttering light. Pink hair in disarray, spread on the floor. Unmoving. Arrays
of raw, white-blue chakra surrounded her -- on the floor, on the walls, in the
air itself, like barriers. They felt like Sasuke, like thunder and fire. He
knew they would hurt like it without touching them.

Kyuubi
crossed them like they didn't exist for him, even though the burns and welts
mirrored themselves on Naruto's skin.

"--Sakura! Breathe -- damn it,
breathe!--"

Orange
chakra started bubbling up from the spreading puddle on the floor; five tails
of fire coiled all around the demon and her. Naruto roared in rage as he rushed
forward. Too late, too slow, and Kyuubi was leaning down, and his claws --

"Who the HELL do you think you are?!"

Naruto
froze in his tracks, his hand smarting where Sakura had slapped aside Kyuubi's
paw. And stared. A lot.

Sakura --
his Sakura-chan, miss more-brains-than-brawns, the girl whose waist he could
encircle with one arm -- was standing there, back hunched, ready to pounce, and
suddenly she seemed ten feet tall. Raw chakra crackled around her like
lightning. Behind her, on the floor, was the translucent, ghostly shape of
another pink-haired girl, still curled up in a tight ball around a soft glow.
What the hell was going on?

Kyuubi's
low growl made Naruto forget his confusion. He had to save her first, he could
wonder later. He rushed forward, splashing redder and redder water as he went;
all around Kyuubi the water boiled over, demon chakra oozing over his body.

Naruto was
in the middle of his last leap when a lashing tail caught him under the ribs,
sending him flying. The breath was knocked out of him, and then his head rapped
sharply against a wall. He fell, dazed, struggled back to his knees as the
world danced around him. At the other end of the black void-room, two blurry
shapes faced off against each other. The echoes of each hit made the floor
shake. Whenever he blinked, the red-burning one seemed to have four paws, and a
huge, gaping maw.

It didn't
stop Sakura from slugging him right in the muzzle, a heavy punch whose momentum
sent Naruto reeling and Kyuubi stumbling back. She seemed utterly furious.
Kyuubi had offended her, and now she would make him pay.

Naruto
would have been more impressed by her fearlessness if the beast hadn't chosen
that moment to start laughing.

"Perhaps
he didn't choose so badly."

Sakura
sneered, charged, fists swinging.

Kyuubi was human
again -- just in time to dodge under her blow, a low, animalistic crouch. Her
foot scythed down -- Naruto's head exploded into pain again, and he stumbled.
Kyuubi snarled, blocked her follow-up fist; his sudden backhand threw her to
the floor, rolling like a puppet with cut strings. Naruto roared in outrage,
slammed into his double -- felt the shock resonating up his back, and the echoing
pain; he didn't care. How could Kyuubi even think about hurting her? How could
he dare?

The world
tilted, water splashed. He dug his claws into Kyuubi's flesh, his teeth in
Kyuubi's shoulders -- or perhaps it was Kyuubi who was biting him -- it hurt
the same, fur and then skin and then fur. Caught in the loop, he didn't know
who was doing what anymore, but he knew that he wasn't going to let go.

"--kura! Come
on, you can--"

Chakra was
welling up around them, bubbling and spreading; it should have left blisters on
their skins. It seeped through instead. All around, the walls of the soul-room
started shaking. There was another male voice shouting somewhere far away, but
they couldn't make out the words. It didn't matter, anyway.

"On three--"

What
mattered was fangs in shoulders and claws digging grooves into muscles and
vicious kicks and limbs snaking around each other, and tails winding and
whipping and melding, and hate rage hate betrayal disgust hate.

And she
said, "Three."

The floor
exploded. Water rushed back at them, and red bubbles and fire and rage, like a
wave -- a tsunami -- and they rolled together, snarling from the shock. How
dare she interrupt them when they were trying to protect --

"Out! Out! Get the hell out before I kill you!"

Chakra
surged again; a giant hand -- large as they were tall -- swept the floor,
narrowly missed them as they rolled out of the way -- backhanded its way back.
Slam. A hard surface broke behind them. They growled, offended and dazed,
stumbled back up over the shattered door to pounce out of the corridor.

"Tiger, Tiger, Ram!"

The walls of
the corridor came to life. Spears and kunai showered them, pits opened under
their heels. And inside her soul room, a larger-than-life Sakura stood, water
bubbling red around her legs, fists white-knuckled, between the door and the
ghost-shape of the other Sakura. They caught a glimpse of the soft, flickering
glow she was cradling, and then chains wrapped around their throat, their
chest, their limbs, hurling them backwards. They dug their heels in,
infuriated, wrapped a tail around the chain to melt it off.

"Naruto! What the hell are you
doing?!"

He
stumbled.

They wanted
to return to their child. To make sure it was alright.

But Sakura
was already doing that. Guarding it, nurturing it. And the spears kept
springing from the walls; he was just a little too slow and one of them dug a
furrow in his back. The pain enraged them again.

"Naruto, damn it, don't make me--"

('I put you down as my next of kin.')

-- Oh.
Right.

If he made
Sasuke kill him, the bastard would bitch.

They still
wanted to go back to their child, to make sure that it would be safe, that it
would be strong. But they'd all done their best and more than that was... bad.
He wasn't really sure why it was bad, but She and He wouldn't -- didn't -- like it. That was reason
enough.

He gave a
last look at the two girls, and the little flame the smaller one was cradling,
and then -- he didn't want to go, but he went anyway. He turned away and ran
down the corridor, past the traps and the blades and the sloshing, frothing
water. The gates slammed closed on his heels; the clanks of deadbolts sliding
home echoing under the low ceiling. He was -- they were -- angry still -- his
mates had gotten in their way -- but proud also. His way or theirs, the baby
would be strong.

The last
door closed behind him, leaving him standing inside the green room. He stumbled
his way back to the cage, feeling, now, the exhaustion and the wounds. Most had
healed over by now, but the soreness stayed. His head swam, and the double
shadow looming overhead made him even more dizzy.

He closed
his hand on a thick metal bar, and opened his eyes to a wooden ceiling, where the
wobbly stick figure grinned at him from under a mess of glowing barrier sigils.
His ears were whistling, and the acrid scent of singed hair tickled his nose.

He could
hear them breathe -- fast, but not in the peculiar, high-pitched way that
betrayed a painful wound. So he breathed with them, and tried to make the world
stop spinning.

"...
Everyone's alive?" Sakura eventually inquired from where she lay sprawled
on the floor.

Sasuke
grunted. Naruto carefully pulled his claws out of the gouges in the wooden
planks, and added his own "Yeah."

He managed
to lift his head off the floor. The glow of the barriers was dimming slowly,
letting him see charred lines and loops on the walls where the sigils had been.
Panels had splintered. Three of the four high-placed, narrow windows were
broken. Sasuke's ink bowl had rolled away from him to crash against the wall;
there were broken shards of pottery behind him, and red-black splashes all over
the floor just outside the main array -- they'd been lucky none had splashed
the patterns.

Sasuke was
pale. Already, he was trying to scowl, but it only made his shaken look worse
for those who knew how to look.

"What
the hell was that?" he demanded
as he climbed unsteadily on his feet.

Sakura gave
an exhausted laugh, flat on her back, and spread her arms as if to stop the
floor from swaying. "Don't know. Hurts. We did it!"

Naruto
laughed with her. It was over. They were safe. She was going to be alright. He
lifted his head just enough to meet her eyes, and they grinned at each other.

"We
almost didn't," Sasuke retorted, glaring at the both of them as he made
his way to Sakura. "And it wasn't even one of the weak points we were
ready for... Where do you hurt?" He fell to one knee at her side, one of
his hands by her head, tapped her cheek to get her to open her eyes.

She
laughed, again, and brought back one of her arms to hold Sasuke's hand against
her face. "Sasuke, calm down. I'm alright. It's over."

He gritted
his teeth. "You said it hurt."

"It
aches. Kind of burns. It's marvelous."

"It's what?"

"It's
not a bad pain! It's like -- when you've been running for hours, and -- you
know, you hit your stride, and then your legs feel like they might have fallen
off and you just haven't noticed yet, but you could run for days and never have
to stop. It's like that."

She was
grinning, Naruto could hear it. He couldn't see anything but Sasuke's sudden
stillness.

"What's
up, guys?" Naruto asked cautiously, wondering if perhaps he should sit up
or something.

"Hmm?"

Sakura
didn't sound concerned. Sasuke spared Naruto a quick, sideway glance, and then
reversed his hold, catching Sakura's wrist and lifting it over her head.

She had
claws.

She had
claws, and neither she, nor Naruto really seemed to be able to do much more
than dumbly stare at her hand.

He wondered
if, like him, she had trouble seeing the problem. She was alive. They weren't
going to have to watch her waste away, bedridden. They weren't going to have to
leave her behind.

... So she
had claws. So what? Naruto did, too. It looked kinda
hot on her, even.

"...
Oh."

"'Oh'? That's all you have to say?"
Sasuke shook his head. "Something's wrong with you."

"No,
there isn't," Sakura replied sulkily.

"Yes,
there is. You have claws. You should
be..."

"--I
should be freaking out?" Now she sounded irritated. "It's just
temporary chakra-induced euphoria and some keratin growth. My hair is probably
a little longer and more bristly as well. It's nothing, I'll trim my nails and it will be gone." She sat up,
sighed, gave Sasuke a softer look. "I know I'm not much as far as medic-nins go, but I would have to be really horrible to miss
such a gross imbalance. It feels weird, but it's not hurting me."

"Unless
it's making you euphoric to make you miss the smaller details, like the fact
that it's changing you."

"It.
Can't. Do. That," she growled.

Naruto
twitched his nose, and interrupted her before she could add something else. He
liked her when she was assertive, and seeing her stand up to Sasuke was always
a treat, but not when Sasuke was only riding her ass because he didn't know how
else to show he was worried. "Ehh. Sakura-chan,
just let him check the seal. If it's done properly it shouldn't allow Kyuubi to
change you for good, right?"

Sasuke
glared at him, then at her, and then back at him, with a touch of desperation.
"She's growling!"

Naruto
rolled to his side slowly. The room briefly tried waltzing around him, and then
settled down; but everything stayed too bright and detailed. "Yeah, well.
The old man told us there would be bleedover."

Sakura made
a face. "That's not a word."

Naruto sat
up, leaning heavily on his hand. "You understood it, right? That makes it
a word. Stop whining and let Sasuke check you out." He grinned suddenly,
and waggled his eyebrows. "I know he's had long enough to do it with his
eyes, but it's the kind of thing you see better with a... hands-on
approach."

Sakura
snorted and giggled, and let herself fall back on the floor, arms curved
elegantly over her head. Her back arched up from the floor, offering her flat
stomach. The seal covering it was no longer ink. Part of her now. Naruto liked the
effect.

Sasuke
stared at her for a few seconds, and then shook his head and concentrated
chakra into his fingers, brushing them along the dark loops and swirls that
sprawled on her skin. He started with the point closer to her solar plexus,
made his way down every single arch and coil. Black hair framing high
cheekbones, dark, slanted eyes, deadly serious -- worried. Naruto liked that,
too. Both the face, and the feelings trying to hide behind it.

When
Sasuke's fingers reached the point just above Sakura's pubis, she sighed.
Naruto smirked a bit, and smirked more when Sasuke paused for a second before
forcing himself to continue his check-up.

"So?"
Naruto asked, when he managed to tear his eyes away from Sasuke's strong, callused
hand on Sakura's belly.

Sasuke gave
him a forbidding scowl, as if he could guess what Naruto was thinking -- he
probably could, Naruto acknowledged, and tried not to leer -- and lifted his
hand away from Sakura's skin. Sakura sighed again, this time disappointedly.

"Lean
back. Let me see yours."

Naruto
forgot his question as Sasuke crawled over Sakura's legs to get to him and
crouched, a foot on each side of his knee. The blond leaned back on his hands,
digging his claws into the wood when Sasuke's chakra brushed his skin. His own
seal was still black as ink, refusing to fade, but he wasn't going to worry
about that yet.

"...The
link between you two seems to be dormant. As it should be. And the filters and
stopgaps are in place..." Sasuke shook his head, raked a hand through his
hair, visibly frustrated. "It still shouldn't have done that," he
added, nodding toward the damaged walls and broken windows. "How the hell
did he slip through? I thought he couldn't leave you!"

... Oh.
Naruto blinked, tore his attention away from Sasuke's legs on both sides of his
knee, his warmth so close, and the delicious thoughts of pulling Sasuke closer
and making him ride his thigh -- tore his attention away again. "He didn't," Naruto replied, when Sasuke rolled
back onto the balls of his feet to move away. "I went with him."

Even as
languid and relaxed as she was, Sakura's eyes still snapped up to his face in a
second. Sasuke's narrowed, threatening, and Naruto wanted to frown back at them
for being so serious -- until he remembered what that meant.

"... I
really did. I went with him." Naruto covered his eyes with his hand and
laughed humorlessly. "So stupid. God."

"...
So you let him trick you into invading Sakura?"

Sasuke's
voice was dangerously soft. Naruto twitched. "I know, okay! I was expecting
him to lie to me. And he didn't, he never lied for one second."

Sakura sat
up and tilted her head. "So he... asked to see what his kit-incubator
could take before bursting into flames, and you thought it sounded nice?"

"No! Goddammit, no." Naruto looked away, disgruntled. Guilt
soured pretty girls in bras like nothing else. "He wasn't trying to hurt
you; I'd never have let him if he'd even thought about hurting you."

"Hah!
If that's his caresses, I don't want to see what his punches are like!"

Naruto
wilted. "... You were just in his way."

"So he
was trying to get to the child,"
Sasuke retorted, vindicated.

"He
didn't wanna hurt the baby." They were doubting
his judgment, Naruto could tell. He bristled. "He wanted to do anything
but hurt the baby."

"Because
possessing it wouldn't hurt it, maybe?" Sasuke snapped back.

"He
didn't wanna possess it! He wanted to make it
stronger. So it would survive," Naruto added, and looked away, a hand
pressed flat on his stomach. "He really wants the baby to survive."

"...
Very badly?" Sasuke asked quietly, thoughtful and displeased.

"You
have no idea how badly."

"Badly
enough to change Sakura to make sure of that?"

Sakura's
claws raked the floor as she gave Sasuke a harried glare. Her hair really was
more bristly; it hung slightly past her shoulders, perhaps a little farther
than it had yesterday, but the ends looked less like her usual smooth locks and
more like she was attempting a pinker, slightly more gravity-prone version of
Sasuke's duckbutt. "I told you I'm fine!"

"Eh,
as long as Sakura-chan feeds the baby enough chakra, he doesn't care what she
looks like. Human, not human, whatever. She could even be a cat or a horse --
hell, she could be an octopus; he doesn't give a shit. As long as the kid is kitsune."

He paused,
gave his teammates a somber look.

"And...
's what he was trying to do. Make sure the baby would be one hundred percent kitsune."

There was a
muscle twitching in Sasuke's jaw. "And you let him."

"It's
not like I knew he would do that! He was just -- he was worried, okay? Like 'it's going to be weak and sickly' and 'what if it dies' and that's already
stuff I was worrying about. So he didn't -- I didn't... think. We just wanted
to make sure the kit would be alright." Naruto grimaced. "Just not
the same way."

Sakura
moved a little closer on hands and knees. "And so you decided to flood me
with chakra and try to take over together. What happened exactly? One second I
was trying to dam a river and the next I was trying to swim in an ocean."

Naruto
blinked at her. Didn't she remember -- the green corridor, and her own
featureless inner room, and the two Sakuras?
"But you were there," he protested.

"That
doesn't mean I had much time to really map out your progress in my coils when I
was getting hammered with wave after wave of demonic chakra," she replied
tartly.

"...
Chakra?"

She tilted
her head; Sasuke frowned and placed his palm on Naruto's forehead, fingers
catching in his hair, and angled Naruto's face to stare into his eyes.
"What's wrong with you, dead-last? Dizzy?"

... She
didn't remember the fight in the soul-room? Kyuubi with Naruto's face? The
second, see-through Sakura? That was... huh. He opened his mouth to explain,
and then closed it again. He didn't want to sound crazy. "Nah, sorry, I
was distracted. But hey, he didn't succeed, right? Blocked him before he
reached his goal. So everything's alright."

Sasuke
didn't seem convinced. Sakura either. Now he had to distract them, before they started questioning
him. But then Sasuke was still kneeling over his thigh, a hand in Naruto's
hair, and Sakura sitting with her legs folded together at her side and
shirtless and still absently raking her claws on the floor, so it probably
wouldn't be too difficult.

... And
then Sasuke sighed, hand falling, and his shoulders slumped a little.
"Fine, whatever." He shifted his weight back and to the side, as if
wanting to sit on the floor; but it was either between Naruto's knees or
against Sakura's side, and, apparently, he needed to think a bit on which would
be the most unacceptable.

Naruto was
about to make the choice for him; but then he noticed that Sasuke's hand, the
one half-hidden behind his leg, wasn't really all that steady. "Hey... You
alright?"

Sasuke
frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Dunno, you look... Not fine."

"You're
looking wrong," he snapped, and turned away when Sakura peered at him.

Yeah,
right. Sasuke was still kind of pale, Naruto wasn't sure how he'd missed it.
"No, don't think so."

Sasuke
growled and rolled his eyes. "Who do you think was holding the wards and
trying to complete the seal while you were playing chakra flash-flood?" He
still wouldn't look at Sakura, and only gave Naruto a quick glare before
glancing away again. "...I'm a little tired, that's all."

-- which
meant it wasn't just simple exhaustion, or else he wouldn't have admitted even
that much. But if he was admitting it, it meant he was using it as misdirection
for something more. Damn it. Naruto scowled, opened his mouth to prod him
again.

Sakura
moved fluidly up on her knees, and leaned against Sasuke's back. She rested a
hand on his shoulder; the other crept around his chest. "I'm sorry we
worried you," she whispered against his shoulder, and then she hugged him
and Sasuke pretty much stopped breathing.

Naruto
watched. The curve of Sakura's hip and the contour of her breast against
Sasuke's shoulder, and her claws brushing against his collarbone. And Sasuke's
clenched fists, tendons rolling under his skin, and the arch of his neck, and
his eyes, unfocused and -- vulnerable. Almost.

"... I
wasn't worried," Sasuke muttered under his breath, halfheartedly. And then
he closed his eyes, and Naruto knew that it had been much worse than simple
worry.

He reached
out to stabilize Sasuke's unsteady crouch, a hand on his chest -- blue cloth,
cool skin underneath. Sasuke opened his eyes to look at him, and Naruto slipped
a hand around his neck and pulled him down for a short, insistent kiss.

"Hey,
asshole."

Sasuke
glared at him, but it didn't have any fire in it. "What, dead-last?"

We're fine,
Naruto wanted to say. He even wanted to give an apology for scaring him, but
then Sasuke would kill them both just so he could pretend it had never
happened. So in the end Naruto just grinned. "It's not that late, is it?
The seal didn't take that long. Not even -- what, eleven? Eleven thirty?"

"I
think so..." Sakura gave him a curious look from over Sasuke's shoulder.
Naruto beamed.

"Good!
Then it means we've got the rest of the night to celebrate."

And before
either of them could tell him no, he closed his fingers on Sasuke's t-shirt and
pulled, bringing them both down on top of him. Their weight knocked the breath
out of him; he wheezed out a laugh, his arms moving around to hold them both.

"Don't
you think we have more important things to do?" Sasuke protested as he
tried to find a support to push himself off Naruto.

"Oh,
lay off about the seal, we've been working on it nonstop for the last month and
a half, maybe longer. It's over now."

Sasuke
sneered at him and tried to push himself up on his hands despite Sakura's
weight on his back. "I was thinking more about checking that we're not
about to be invaded by a platoon of ANBU."

"They
can watch," Sakura offered magnanimously.

Sasuke
craned his neck to stare at her, and he and Naruto blinked in unison.

"...
Gee, don't laugh so hard at my jokes, guys, they're not that funny."

Naruto
smirked. "And here I was happy you were finally getting kinky."

"You
two--"

Naruto
growled, cutting Sasuke off before he could get going. "Shut up. We're
going to go to bed and fuck like bunnies. That's what we're going to do. And if
the ANBU wants a look, they can cough up an entry fee and shut the hell
up."

"You
can't be serious," Sasuke growled back, though Naruto thought his voice
lacked the proper resonance to make it vicious enough.

"I'm
serious," Sakura replied instead, and then she bit Sasuke's shoulder.

By the way
Sasuke jerked, Naruto thought he could safely assume she had also grown fangs.

By what he
could feel now against his stomach, Sasuke wasn't as not-in-the-mood as he was
trying to pretend. That or even his steely self-control wasn't absolute enough
to fight teenage hormones.

"--Sakura
-- Naruto, don't be stupid, we'll have all the time in the world later -- we
should be erasing our tracks, reassuring -- nngh."

Naruto's
hands were tight on Sasuke's hips; he tangled their legs together, rubbed the
side of his foot against one of Sakura's calves and watched her nibble on
Sasuke's ear.

"Like
everyone involved in the whole surveillance business doesn't already think
we're having sex!" she grumbled. She was blushing, but it didn't make her
scowl any less determined. "So if they're going to think we're doing it
regardless, I wouldn't mind it actually happening. It's been months!"

"Only
two..."

Naruto
grinned, eyes narrowed predatorily. "Sasuke... Don't make us tear off your
clothes with our teeth. We'd do it."

"Oh,
can the porn star lines," Sasuke snapped, and heaved himself up suddenly.
Sakura squeaked, rolled to the side. Naruto started to dig his fingers into
Sasuke's hips, but his claws caught skin and he hesitated. Sasuke tore himself
free too fast, and then there were faint white lines in the middle of the red
imprints left by Naruto's fingers.

They all sat
on the floor, Sakura with her legs folded to the side, Naruto with his own
stretched out, Sasuke ready to push himself up.

And then
Sakura leaned toward Sasuke, slipped a finger in his collar, and pulled down.

"...I
think I like the claws," she mused, staring at her hand in surprise and
approval. Sasuke was gaping at her, sitting there dumbly with his t-shirt torn
open down to his stomach.

Naruto
started laughing, and reached for Sasuke to tear off the rest of his clothes.
Startled out of his astonishment, Sasuke batted his hands away, pushing himself
away from them with his heels.

... Hohoho.

Naruto
rolled on his hands and knees, and grinned. He'd been meaning to jump Sakura's
bones too, but in the mood she was in right now, it was a toss-up who would
jump each other first... And getting Sasuke to accept that it was over already and that they were safe and together came first -- she already knew that.

He could
always tackle and bite and happily fuck her afterwards.

They kept
moving forward on hands and knees; Sasuke kept moving back on his ass. The
scene would probably look quite ridiculous to an outsider, but Naruto didn't
care, because there was an off-balance look in Sasuke's eyes, and he could
catch glimpses of his nipples and flat stomach through the torn shirt, and
Sakura's bra really wasn't hiding much, and Naruto really, really enjoyed
seeing her like that.

"This
isn't funny -- are you hunting me?"

Sakura
huffed, blowing a pink lock away from her face. "Yes. And I'm sure I'll be
very sorry tomorrow. I'll apologize, even."

Sasuke
tried to move to the side, but Naruto crawled that way to flank him. The
black-haired boy glared at him briefly -- and Sakura pounced.

Sasuke
wheezed, the breath knocked from his lungs. "Sakura, damn it, what's gotten
into you!?"
�
Naruto
laughed, hard and loud and way too amused; "It's more about what
hasn't." and Sasuke glared at him briefly --

--
Straddling Sasuke's hips, she took fistfuls of Sasuke's shirt to tear off,
leaned down to get in his face. She was breathing hard -- annoyance, arousal,
Naruto didn't know and didn't care.

"Sakura--"

"You're
hard, Sasuke," she snapped back with
surprising anger. Under her, Sasuke had stopped breathing. "You're hard
and you want it, and like hell you're going to have 'I was drunk' as an excuse
every single time this happens. So I'm giving you a choice."

Naruto
stared, shocked. This... was a lot deeper than simple annoyance at Sasuke's
frigid ways.

"Tell
me it isn't for me, not even a little bit. Tell me I'm not hot enough for you,
tell me you just don't like me like that; tell me whatever. But tell me now,
and mean it. Because otherwise I'm
going to have sex with you."

"...
Sakura..." Sasuke hesitated, frowned -- and then Sakura was kissing him,
hard, with teeth. It wasn't a gentle, lingering kiss, or a sexy, enticing kiss.
There was despair in there; love, too, lots and lots, and desire and pain.

Naruto
realized he wasn't breathing much either.

He wanted
them both so much -- for so much more than just sex. He wanted to hold them and
possess them and be possessed by them and know that they were never going to
let go, and he wanted to feel their fingers between his as they came, and he
wanted them to give themselves to him -- not even for the thrill of calling the
shots, just for the trust and the love, and the belonging to him, belonging
with them. And what Sakura wanted -- it was just that.

Teammates
-- being teammates was everything. And yet in the long run it wasn't going to
be enough.

When
Sasuke's arms rose and wound themselves around her back, reluctant at first,
and then tight enough to make his muscles shift under his skin, make the breath
leave her in a startled little gasp, Naruto shuddered and threw himself at
them. He wound an arm around Sakura's waist, dug his fingers into Sasuke's
biceps, and bit and kissed her shoulder. Sasuke was kissing Sakura back now,
eyes closed; when she whimpered breathlessly, Sasuke made a startled little
grunt in echo.

Naruto
whined softly, desperate. Because Sasuke... Because that was what Sakura wanted
to know, if he'd ever, ever let her in -- and now there Naruto was, alone on
the outside, and he was glad for them both -- and he couldn't take it.

"Love
you," he whispered past the knot in his throat. He didn't even know which
one he was saying it to. "Love you, love you."

Sakura's
breath hitched and she broke the kiss, just long enough to nod jerkily. Naruto
didn't know what it meant -- who she wanted to tell it to. Sasuke was panting
under her, his fingers still digging into her back, his eyes still closed.
Naruto growled, pushed her aside enough to get at his mouth -- he bit him,
tasted blood, was bit back. Good. Sakura rubbed her cheek against his, and her
lips; dropped kisses on Naruto's eyebrow and Sasuke's eyelid and the flat of
his nose, and then her lips brushed his and Sasuke's somehow -- and he hadn't
known they could do that, a three-way kiss. It was awkward, with little freedom
of movement, but it calmed him down a little anyway. He laughed, more out of
relief than amusement.

"Love
you," Sakura choked out. Naruto kissed wetness away, and she closed her
eyes.

Against his
arm, he could feel Sasuke's hand undoing her bra strap, and he laughed again,
shocked and a little thrilled, and really, not surprised at all that Sasuke was
trying to get out of saying it back. "Asshole."

Sakura
laughed with him, and kissed Sasuke again, hands cupping his face. The two of
them paused, just -- looking into each other's eyes, and Naruto felt like a
fifth or even seventh wheel again, but this time he made himself not interrupt.
Sakura-chan getting Sasuke to want,
not just tolerate her -- Sasuke learning not to be quite so wary and guarded...
It was great for them both. It really was. She'd be good for him.

"...
Asshole yourself, retard."

Sakura
burst out into snickers, because Sasuke hadn't even looked away from her one
second, but his hand was still under Naruto's nose, closed into a fist but for
his middle finger.

What could
Naruto do, but sneer at him and then bite it? Nothing else, really. Fucking angsty, antisocial bastard. He wrapped his lips around
Sasuke's finger and sucked wetly, still glaring at him, daring him to make
something of it.

"...
Fuck."

Naruto
smirked and curled his tongue around the base of Sasuke's finger a last time.
"I'd think it's closer to a blowjob, myself."

Sakura was
still laughing herself breathless, in between two kisses to Sasuke's jaw.
"Boys. You're getting all worked up over going down on a finger."

Sasuke made
an annoyed noise and slipped his Naruto-free hand under her to cup a breast,
making her gasp and stop laughing very quickly. "Shut up, or you won't get
any."

Sakura
squeaked in outrage and sat up on him hurriedly. "Just try to stop
me!"

Naruto
couldn't help but laugh, and laugh. He'd never seen them so arousing -- both
flushed in offended annoyance, Sasuke pinned down between Sakura's thighs and
Sakura fighting to whip off her own bra. Visibly she intended to ride him like
a pony. "Hold your -- heh -- hold your horses,
Sakura-chan. Might be better in the bedroom, yeah?"

She glared
at him for interrupting, claws digging into the floor on both sides of Sasuke's
head.

"...
Also, if you let him get up, it will be a lot easier to yank his pants down.
'Cause you know, right now it's gonna be a bit complicated."

A second
later, Sasuke was alone on the floor, sprawled on his back between her feet,
and she was pulling on his arm to get him to stand up.

"What
the hell?!" Sasuke protested. He looked quite molestable,
with reddened hickeys on his skin and hair all over the place, and Naruto was
tempted to yank his pants off and jump him right there anyway.

"I
want to be in our bed," Sakura retorted. Naruto blinked, because it wasn't
much of a bed -- three layers of blankets, and ratty sleeping bags -- but the
way she said it, it was a king-sized, artistically carved oak affair with
down-filled pillows.

One that
needed proper christening.

He could
get behind that.

He leaned
down, caught Sasuke's other arm to haul him up. Scowling, Sasuke tried to pull
free, but neither he nor Sakura relaxed their grip; and then there were two
sets of claws at his waistband anyway.

Naruto
really appreciated working in tandem with Sakura-chan. Especially when it was
about shredding Sasuke's clothes off him.

"My pants,
you retards! You're both crazy!"

They
probably were, at that. But it seemed 'crazy' got Sasuke going anyway. And
seeing how much Sasuke really wanted them, no matter what he pretended, didn't
make Naruto's own underwear feel any less constricting.

"...
Okay! We're going now." Claw-tipped fingers circling Sasuke's wrist,
Sakura forged ahead, bare feet stomping on the wooden planks, small, firm
breasts bouncing freely in rhythm with her steps. Sasuke went along with it for
a few steps, a little dazed, but when they passed through the door between the
dojo and the house, he dug in his heels.

"Wait--"

"No!"
Naruto interrupted him. "No more wait. I'm tired of waiting." Naruto
twisted Sasuke's arm behind his back -- Sasuke let him -- and pushed the black-haired
boy forward with his body. If he stole a grope or two in the process of
manhandling Sasuke there, it wasn't Sakura who was going to berate him.

It was dark
in the living room, where they slept, but Sakura's skin was pale and her biker
shorts black, and so it wasn't easy to miss it when she rolled them down her legs.

She went to
the nest of blankets they called a bed and sat there, waiting.

This time
Naruto didn't need to push Sasuke to join her. They went together, shoulder
against shoulder.

+
... Omigod the chapter of DOOM is over. :ded:

And with
it, Teamwork 2 is almost over! Next up are : an epilogue from Kakashi's POV, a series
of one-shot interludes to deal with a couple of loose ends, and then Teamwork 3
will start. But since I know people are lazy, and I don't want to figure out
how to post everything without confusing the readers as to what happens when
and in which order they're supposed to read them, I'll still post everything in
here, so you don't have to keep an eye out for another fic
or ten. XD

... So
basically nothing really changes, except the title of the chapters. And the
size of said chapters. Thank god, they were really getting way too big. u.u
- 7
- 8
- 9
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Teamwork 2