Kiba paced back and forth in the waiting room, eyes moving toward the three Sand Siblings occasionally that had come in after they had. Akamaru had been really nervous since the Sand, especially the center kid, had arrived. For his own part, he could smell blood thick and heavy about the young brown-haired kid with the black circles around his eyes.
That wasn't something that concerned him too much. His team had already set one potentially lethal trap taking advantage of the local terrain, and he as yet had no idea whether the team they'd tripped up had survived the encounter or not. Death was a part of this test and a part of being ninja.
But Akamaru was nervous around the kid, and that was strange.
Hinata was similarly worried from her position, pushing her finger tips together and looking down at her feet. A lot of people wouldn't see anything different from her normal attitude, but it was apparent to Kiba and even Shino that the girl was worrying more than the usual amount.
Unfortunately, once they'd checked in, they hadn't been allowed to check back out again, and potential spill the beans on such things as what was in the scrolls and the like.
It had been almost a full day since they had turned in their scrolls, and so far the only other team to arrive was the Sand team.
"Oi, what a pain," a familiar voice called out from elsewhere in the tower.
Steps approached from down the hallway drawing attention from the others waiting there. Hinata, Kiba and Shino, through their various senses, allies and the like knew who was coming already, though they each betrayed a trace of surprise as Ino came into the waiting room, looking somewhat less victorious than she would normally have been at this point.
"How did you wimps get here so fast?" Kiba practically demanded.
"We found some scrolls," Ino said dryly, very much out of character.
"You found 'some' scrolls?" Kiba repeated.
"Hai," Choji said. "Sakura was..."
Ino made a swift, harsh noise and turned to glare at her comrade, crossing her arms. Choji stopped talking with a look of embarrassment.
"Uh, sorry Ino," he said.
"Sakura?" Hinata said, lifting her head in surprise.
"Nevermind," Shikamaru said. "It's too much of a pain to explain it."
"Hey, where was your gate?" Kiba asked.
Ino shrugging at that pointed vaguely in the direction that they had come from.
"Then you were over around where Team 7 was?" Kiba asked.
Hinata perked up at that.
"Oh, did you see Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked quickly.
"Hmm? Wasn't he beaten up when we saw him?" Choji asked.
Hinata stepped up to her feet and started looking toward the door.
"Relax, he's fine," Shikamaru said. "Your cousin's team is watching out for them last we saw and that Saotome girl was up. I'd imagine they're not too far behind us if they haven't had too much trouble."
Ino walked over toward Choji and started leaning into his face snapping at him in something of a shrewish manner.
"What are you thinking?" she snapped. "Are you not a ninja? Don't you know how to keep a secret? Are you going to just blurt things out in front of everybody?"
"But they asked and..." Choji protested.
"Idiot!" Ino snapped bitterly. "You don't just blurt out news like that. What if they're worried about them or something? I mean, I know it's Naruto, but Sasuke's there too, and you're going to make her think he's hurt!"
"But, wasn't he?" Choji asked before Ino smacked him on the head.
"Idiot, keep your mouth closed!" she snapped.
Shikamaru looked toward Ino and shook his head before turning back toward Hinata and the oddly relieved Kiba.
"Anyway, I guess we just hang out here until the five days is done," Shikamaru said moving to a bench and lying down on it. "So, I'm going to nap for the next few days and maybe watch the TV in cafeteria."
"You're a lazy one aren't you?" the blonde leaf woman noted harshly.
Shikamaru shrugged and eyed the woman with the hard expression on her face as she looked at him in a trace of disapproval.
"Hmph, she's a hard woman," he thought without saying anything. "What a pain."
Kiba walked over toward Ino as the mind-swapper smacked choji over the skull with her fist one last time.
"Ryoko and Naruto are fine?" he asked.
"The scaredy cat?" Ino asked.
"Don't you call her that," Kiba snarled.
"Why not it's what she is," the Yamanaka continued. "If you'd seen what I'd seen..."
"Shut up," he snapped. "You don't know anything. You said you saw them?"
"Yeah, they're going to be fine like Shikamaru said," Ino said, shrugging. "She's just lucky she has someone like Sasuke on her team."
That was said with a fair amount of rancor that was more like what Kiba expected of the girl. Ignoring it for now, he glanced back toward Hinata and gave her an encouraging thumbs up as he walked back toward the benches.
"All of you be quiet," the brown-haired boy in the middle said.
Instantly the two older Sand shinobi turned to grimace at him darkly.
"Who are you to tell us to be quiet!" Ino snapped harshly. "If you're going to be quiet, you might as well not exist."
Shikamaru's eyes popped open and he twisted to sitting up straight to stare at Ino.
Gaara frowned and looked up to meet Ino's eyes, narrowing his own. Normally, Ino would have felt the blood lust instantly and backed down. As it was, however, she'd already been steeped in first Ryoko's Kishu and faced the monstrosity of what had been done to Sakura, recalling their time as friends and given her an intense anger of her own that she needed to work out.
"Is that so?" Gaara asked smoothly. "If you're quiet, you might as well not exist? Are you saying you'd prefer not to exist than to be quiet?"
"What about it brat?" Ino snapped. "Do you think I'm just going to push over because someone tells me too? Am I just a piece of terrain then? I'm going to say what I feel and people can take it or not."
Gaara stood up and turned slowly to face her.
"Maybe I should show you how I know that I exist," he said vaguely.
"Hold on!" the blonde Suna shinobi said. "There's no fighting here. Remember what we're here for Gaara, we can't mess that up. So just...calm down, a favor to your sister."
"Listen to your sister, raccoon-face," Ino growled. "Because there's no way right now I'm letting any selfish brat push me around!"
"Excuse us," Shikamaru said as he and Choji grabbed Ino and started pulling her away...with some difficulty.
Gaara narrowed his eyes as she was pulled away and watched her progress.
"Blondie there is some idiot," Temari said, shaking her head.
Kankuro turned to look at her and took in his sister's blonde hair before shaking his head and grimacing.
"I have to deal with this for three or four more days," he wondered.
Out in the forest, Naruto was waking up slowly as he glanced around taking in the presence of the second team and Sasuke standing and exchanging glares with Hinata's cousin.
"Oi, what happened to that freak?" he asked.
It was some time later after the situation had been mostly explained to Naruto that both teams were still sitting around to give them time to recover.
Not that it was Neji and Tenten's choice.
"Let us just take the scroll and be done with it," Neji said imperiously. "You are holding right now as it is."
"But a challenge has been made," Lee protested. "It wouldn't be right to simply turn it down."
"Lee," Tenten said irritably. "Her body is shredded, as much as she acts like she's fine, she's not able to fulfill a challenge right now."
"Then perhaps we should give them the scroll so that they might leave the testing field earlier and have time to rest for the next step," Lee said.
"Oh no!" Ryoko said. "I couldn't possibly accept that! I wou..."
"You said 'couldn't'," Naruto commented, cutting her off.
"Ano?" Ryoko said, distracted before her eyes widened. "Oh! Could not! Could not! I could not possibly accept that!"
Tenten and Neji stared at her in something like disbelief.
"The point is moot," Neji said quietly. "We have enemies approaching."
"What?" Naruto asked. "Does everybody know we're here?"
"Ano...h..hai," Ryoko noted, pointing to the fire where she was brewing tea. "Su...sumimasen. Father says n..not to brew tea on the fire, but to po..pour the hot water onto the leaves after so that the smell does not travel too far and attract trouble."
The other five people present blinked and looked down at the fire and the strong, herbal odor coming off of it.
"And why aren't you doing that?" Neji asked.
"Ano.." Ryoko said, blinking. "Th...this is easier than looking fo..for someone."
"Are you insane?" Sasuke asked harshly. "Nevermind...I don't want to know."
"It worked didn't it?" Naruto asked. "They're coming?"
"But we're not controlling who we fight this way," Neji said bitterly. "Or how many."
"Su...sumimasen," Ryoko said, not yet understanding why people were upset. "I...su...suppose I was too greedy?"
"Greedy?" Tenten asked, blinking as she readied for a fight.
"Nevermind, for this shall be a glorious chance to show our true worth!" Lee declared.
At least one person understood the subtleties of a Saotome with a "plan".
See other episodes by Thrythlind
(Posted Sat, 18 Sep 2010 18:50)
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