"Please return to your room, Lord Uchiha," said a flustered nurse as she hovered nervously around Sasuke while he dragged his feet through Konoha General Hospital's halls, using a hat stand as a makeshift crutch. "You need your bed rest!"
Despite the deep pockets under his eyes and the fact that he was dressed in his pyjamas, Sasuke remained as roguishly handsome as ever. Watching him single-mindedly push himself to his limits was enough to make this experienced nurse swoon and wish she were twenty years younger, so that she might make a pass at the young shinobi.
"Leave me be, woman," Sasuke snarled, pausing for the briefest instant to fix her with a terrifying glare. "There's a certain someone I have to kill."
The nurse's heart fluttered. This patient was a very bad boy indeed… she could definitely fix him.
Sasuke's eyes flashed.
The woman crumpled into a heap where she stood and slipped into a wonderful dream. With that annoying hindrance out of his way, Sasuke resumed his dogged journey, leaving the nurse to her delusions. It would be another half hour before her supervisor found her snoozing on the floor, drooling from the corner of her mouth.
At last, Sasuke arrived at his destination, a door guarded by the Hokage Guard Platoon.
"Naruto, I know he brought her in," Sasuke hissed at them. "Where is he?"
Without ever stopping chewing on the senbon he was constantly grinding between his teeth, Shiranui Genma casually jabbed a thumb in the direction of the neighbouring room.
Acknowledging Genma's help with the faintest flaring of his nostrils, Sasuke began limping towards the waiting room, where he found a hunched-over Naruto sitting on a chair. A nervous wreck, Naruto appeared to be dissociating badly, his gaze unfocused as he chewed on his thumb, the nail bitten to the quick.
Without wasting a single second, Sasuke hefted the hat stand he'd been leaning on and hurled it at Naruto, catching him square in the forehead. With a reflexive "Ouch," Naruto toppled off his chair with a loud crash, cracking his head against the hospital's hard linoleum floor.
"Naruto, you bastard," Sasuke hissed. "I trusted you to take care of Sakura."
Dazed, Naruto said nothing as he sat up on the floor.
"I TRUSTED YOU TO PROTECT HER!" Sasuke roared. "AND THIS IS HOW YOU BRING HER BACK TO ME!?"
Genma and the rest of the Hokage Guard Platoon said nothing, pretending not to see what was going on at the end of the corridor, preferring not to get involved between these two monsters, who were on a par with the Hokage in strength. Their only job was to protect said Hokage, and nothing else.
"…"
Naruto lowered his eyes in shame. Even though there was nothing he could have done, since Sakura had gone off to fight the enemy on her own and saved them all as a result, he still felt responsible for what had happened to her. In a way, being berated by Sasuke like this made him feel somewhat better…
"Look at me when I'm talking to you," Sasuke snarled, stalking over and picking him up by the collar as adrenaline flooded his system. "Sakura is all I have left of my family, and if she doesn't make it…"
Sasuke's voice trailed off, and he let go of Naruto's neck, letting him fall at his feet.
"You're pathetic, I don't even know why I'm bothering with you," he said in disgust. "You have no idea what it feels like to lose your family, you never even had one to begin with—"
Without warning, Naruto spoke up. "Take that back."
"Make me."
A cold glint appeared in Naruto's dull eyes.
"Sakura's my family too, ya know," he growled. "More than you think… heh."
Naruto staggered to his feet and rose to his full height, staring down Sasuke, who refused to back down. For a few seconds, they glowered at each other, their noses a mere few centimetres apart... then, without warning, Sasuke threw a punch. Already expecting something like this, Naruto caught the fist in his palm and twisted his body, aiming a reverse elbow at his friend's nose, but Sasuke leaned back to avoid the strike.
The elbow only grazed his cheek, drawing blood.
Taking advantage of the fact that he had knocked Sasuke off balance, Naruto brought his hands together, but before he could form the Shadow Clone seal, Sasuke slapped his wrists apart. Growling, Naruto tried to headbutt him, but Sasuke grabbed the back of his neck and forced his head down, breaking his nose against his knee with a sickening crack.
"@!#%&~!!!"
Naruto tilted his head back, snorting the blood pooling in his nostrils into his throat before spitting it out in a crimson spray into Sasuke's coal-black eyes, temporarily blinding him. Roaring in anger, Naruto started swinging, raining down blows on the weakened Sasuke as he blindly attempted to parry them, until he saw an opening...
"That's quite enough."
Without warning, Naruto and Sasuke found themselves constricted from head to toe as snakes coiled around their bodies, their glistening fangs dripping with clear venom, poised to sink into their unprotected necks…
"Brawling in the hospital while your teammate lies between life and death? Words cannot express how disappointed I am of you two," Jiraiya's severe voice echoed in their ears. "I understand how you feel, but you're not the only ones here… if you've got to talk with your fists, then do it outside."
"Orochimaru's back…" Sasuke murmured, glancing at the three people standing next to Jiraiya's towering figure. "And…"
That tall, white-bearded man in the brown and yellow robes, and that bandanna-wearing, boyish redhead with the thick eyebrows… he remembered them. They were the two doctors who had saved Lady Tsunade after she had fallen into a coma following an assassination attempt.
"Is the patient stable?" asked Dr Shinnō. "How long has it been since she suffered the injury?"
Jiraiya glanced pointedly at Naruto, who, after a few seconds of incomprehension, finally realised that as the person who had brought the Hokage back to the village, he was the one the question had been addressed to.
"A few days… a week," Naruto spluttered, counting the days on his fingers. "I think the Boss Slug said… it was too risky to move Sakura-chan before then, ya know."