Naruto : Struggle Of Childhood

Waiting

It probably wasn't the best idea in the world to take a break at a tea shop, but Hinata needed it. Granted, she was doing better since the last night, but she was still quiet and kept her head down. They all agreed that maybe some tea would pick her up a little.

They were all quiet as they sat in the booth. Sakura and Hinata drank their tea in silence, while Naruto munched on some dango and Sasuke glowered down at his undrunk tea that was getting cold with enough passion that Naruto was surprised that the thing didn't reheat itself.

"Alright, guys," Naruto said, setting down his stick, "I know no one wants to talk about it right now, but a lot happened yesterday. We have to go over it."

Hinata nodded once, but she didn't say anything.

Neji gave her a worried look, but cleared his throat.

"There isn't much for me to report. The only thing that ended up happening was that Rock Lee, Gai's student joined up with us as well as Hanabi. There was apparently some kind of rebellion in the Hyuuga clan, which is why they weren't present."

Naruto nodded.

"I ended up taking one of Oto's more powerful nin hostage," Kimimaro said, "She's with Tsunade. The others aren't a problem anymore."

So, they were all dead.

"That it?"

"Yep."

"Haku and I got into a fight with some Oto nin. The ones from the preliminaries. We captured them all," Sakura said, "Oh, and Kabuto was a spy."

"Why am I not surprised?" Neji asked, rolling his eyes.

"Because he was obvious," Sasuke muttered. "My older brother appeared during the fight with Yumi. He was wearing the Akatsuki uniform."

The table was silent.

Naruto had managed to forget about little detail. Still, he'd helped them, right? Maybe they wouldn't have Akatsuki on their tails right now. He didn't think that they were really in the mentality to take that as well as a loss and the death of Hiashi.

Sasuke took a deep breath before continuing.

"That means that he has to have had a partner with him. I didn't see them though. Maybe they split up somewhere. I never got the chance to talk to Itachi after I saw him the first time. At any rate, if there's anyone going after us, it's going to be them."

Actually, it didn't seem that anyone was after them by this point. Maybe Konoha was in such a state that it couldn't afford to send anyone to chase them down. It was too busy bracing for a possible attack from one of the other counties, which all had a vendetta by this time. Naruto really hoped so. He was so much in thought that he didn't really notice as someone walked into the shop and sat down in the booth behind them.

"Ok, so I beat up Sora a little and ran into Kiba. That's about it. What was up with the rest of things? Sasuke, you were with Shizune."

"There were some wounded people," Sakura said before Sasuke could answer, "Everyone had been in place at the time, so it helped, but we weren't really expecting what happened. And, of course, there were the sheer numbers..." Sakura sighed.