Naruto : Venom

Poof

Instantly I take in my surroundings. I will not miss another chance for a surprise attack on Orochimaru. Tsunade, Shizune, Naruto and Jiraya are all in the hotel room looking like they just went through hell.

When did I make it back to the hotel? "Oh. Did I miss the fight?"

"Yep! It was awesome!" Naruto cheerily informs me. "I totally see why you don't like snake face. Creepy as fuck."

"Naruto! Language!" Shizune disciplines him.

"YOU LEFT ME IN THE DAMN SCROLL THE ENTIRE TIME?" What the hell people! "You do realize how dangerous I can be right? I could have helped!"

"I'm sorry. I didn't know how you'd react after... yeah. Figured it was for the best to have you out of the fight." Tsunade nervously says from a corner of the room. She's put as much distance between us as possible. Smart call. That doesn't mean I'm not going to hit her.

I boldly stride across the room and stand right in front of her. I'm definitely in her personal space. "Did you kill him?"

"No."

I reel back and punch her as hard as I can in her stomach. My forearm breaks, it looks like I have a new joint with the angle it's bent at. I've punched rocks less hard than her. "Don't you ever do something like that again! Next time I ask you to help me kill him you better help me kill him! You're lucky I know why you wanted to do it yourself otherwise I would hate you forever. Instead I'm just unbelievably pissed off he's still alive!"

She winces. "I could fix your arm for you? Would that help get me back into your good graces?"

"No. I can do that myself." The Jiongu straightens out my arm for me. About damn time. It could have done that the moment after it broke. "If you want to get in my good graces, then haul ass to Konoha and heal my team. We'll be even then and we can go back to how we were before. Unless you decide to go on another trip that takes up decades of time."

Tsunade smirks at me, "You're looking at the fifth Hokage squirt. I'll be in Konoha for a long time."

"Oh thank Kami!" Everyone stares at me. I can't blame them, I did just flip from pissed off to relieved in an instant. "If you declined either Jiraya or Kakashi would be the next Hokage. Could you imagine that? The kunoichi would be forced to wear a racy uniform or the Hokage would never show up to anything on time. Really, it is for the best you accepted."

"Can we go back now?" Naruto asks. "We could already be on the way, but we had to get Alvarcus. I can't believe I'm the only one who remembered he came with us."

"YOU ALMOST LEFT ME IN THAT SCROLL FOREVER? WHAT THE HELL PEOPLE!"

...

We made it back to Konoha without any issues. If you don't count me complaining about almost being abandoned forever as an issue.

"Alright old lady let's go heal my team. You did promise." I will not wait any longer.

"Fine, fine. Then leave me alone. I've had enough of you!" Tsunade and I head to the hospital.

"Please, I'm a dream compared to Naruto. He can ramble on about anything all day long."

We go to Sasuke first. Tsunade simply walks up to him, lays a hand on his head and says, "Done." Then walks out of the room. How underwhelming. "I'll be outside. We'll go get your sensei next."

Sasuke stirs on the bed. He cracks open his eyes. "Alvarcus?"

"Hey Sasuke. Welcome back to the real world." I smile down at him.

"I'm back?" He asks me.

"Yep. You're back. You've been asleep for a little under a month now. We're in Konoha's hospital."

Sasuke sits up. "How did you wake me up? That technique broke my mind."

"Nothing major." I smirk at him. "I only got the best medic nin in the world to come wake your lazy ass up for me."

"You're damn right I'm the best!" Tsunade calls in from outside the room.

"Oi! I thought you left to give us privacy!" I call back.

"No, I just didn't want to watch your sappy reunion moment." Wow, thanks Tsunade.

I sigh, "We're waking up Kakashi next. Want to come with?"

"Kakashi got hit too?" So Sasuke didn't know. Good, I thought he just didn't tell me when we left the village.

"Yeah, come on. We'll go wake him up."

Sasuke and I exit the room and meet up with Tsunade.

"Come on, I don't have all day."

We go down the hallway and stop in Kakashi's room. She walks up to him and lays her hand on his head.

"Done. I'm leaving. I've got more important things to do than listen to this. Like figure out how to run a village. Why did I agree to this?"

Kakashi stirs in his bed. His one eye flies open and takes in his surroundings.

"Kakashi-sensei, you're late. A whole month late. This must be a record." I tell him.

He chuckles, "Well you see there was this big bad pair of missing nin."

I laugh at him. "The sad thing is, in any other situation I could see you using that excuse."

"So you fought Itachi too." Sasuke says.

Kakashi tenses. "Too? You didn't. You confronted him didn't you?"

"He did." I throw Sasuke to the wolves. "I just tagged along."

"Please! Alvarcus took on the other one. You're just as guilty as I am!" Dammit Sasuke!

"You both took on Itachi and Kisame and lived?" Kakashi asks in disbelief. "I must be one hell of a teacher."

"Oh no, don't misunderstand. We got destroyed." I inform Kakashi. "Heck Sasuke here got hit with the same thing you did, and I got my head cut off and lost a heart."

Kakashi and Sasuke look at me in surprise. "You lost a heart?" Sasuke asks for clarification.

"Yeah. It's okay I have spares." I toss his joke back at him. He cracks a grin.

"Well I am glad you both are okay. Never do that again. That was reckless and poorly planned!" Kakashi reprimands us. "How did I get woken up anyways?"

"Nothing major." Sasuke says, "Alvarcus just tracked down Tsunade and convinced her to come heal us both."

"Really?"

"Yeah." I add on. "In fact, she's the next Hokage. Sorry Kakashi I guess you'll have to be the next one."

"Oh thank Kami. I was not looking forward to that." Sasuke and I laugh at Kakashi's reaction.

"Well up and at them you lazy jerks! Konoha has to stay strong, we need to start taking missions like crazy. You've had your rest."

...

The Next Day, Hokage's Office.

"You summoned us, Hokage-sama?" Kakashi greets the Hokage.

"You should wear the hat!" I chime in. I know I would totally wear the hat.

"Sorry squirt," Tsunade replies, "but it ruins my hair. I didn't call you all in here for a nice chat. I need to split you three up."

Silence follows that statement.

"Why?" Kakashi asks. "We're a team. We work together."

"Not anymore. At least not for the time being, I'm giving you a new assignment Kakashi. Your students won't be a part of it. I need you to go out to the field on high level missions and show the world that we are still strong. Believe it or not, you're one of my best jonin and people know your name. We need you to display your skills, we need you to become a pillar of strength. We don't need you to train these two further. From what I've heard around the village they are both at chunin level. In fact the only reason I am not promoting them is because they left the village without permission to attack S-rank missing nin!"

Sasuke and I wince.

"We're sorry?" I say weakly. Tsunade can be scary as hell.

"Not good enough. You both have the skill to be chunin, of that there is no doubt. It is your judgment that needs work." She pauses. "I have a mission here. One that no one else has taken yet. It is an escort mission. There is a race that is held between two families in the Land of Tea, our client is the Wasabi family. You'll have to protect their runner from other shinobi and anything else that could go wrong during the race. Since there's expected shinobi opposition this is a B-rank mission. Usually I would send a more experienced full gennin team with a jonin or a team of chunin for this, but you two are the best of my available shinobi that I can send on such short notice. Can you do it?"

Sasuke and I make eye contact. "I can do this alone if you aren't up for it Sasuke. You did just get out of a coma."

"Please, like a coma will keep me from anything." Sasuke arrogantly says.

"Do you realize how dumb that sounded? Never mind, of course you didn't. You sure? We don't have the best track record with escort missions. The last one we went on we had to deal with Zabuza. You remember that giant sword wielding maniac right?"

"I doubt we will run into any legendary swords on this mission." Sasuke blandly says.

"Oh great, now you jinxed it! If we run into another legendary sword you are buying me a new pair of sunglasses."

"Deal. If we don't you have to move out of my house."

"I was going to do that anyways." I turn to Tsunade, "We'll take the mission."

"Good. I was getting tired of watching you two banter. You two will leave in three days, that should be enough time for coma boy to get back on his feet. Now leave. I have to give Kakashi his mission." She shoos us out of her office.

I turn to Sasuke. "Well, want to go spar or something? Best way to get back into the groove of things is to jump in with both feet first."

"Maybe tomorrow. Let's just hang out for a day and you can fill me in on what I've missed out on." He and I start walking out of the Hokage Tower. "Like how the hell Tsunade of the Sannin and you are so friendly with each other? When did that happen?"

"That's a long story. A long and very annoying story. You're not going to believe the month I've had. We're definitely going to need some food. What's at your house?"

He stares at me with the most scandalized look on his face.

"Oh. Right. Month long coma, everything there is going to be way past the expiration date. We'll have to go grocery shopping."

"Kami I hate grocery shopping. Do you have any idea how many stares I get? How can people not understand that the 'famous Last Uchiha' goes grocery shopping too?"

...

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