The Way Into Mist Village (Naruto)

49: A Truce And a Tumble

[OP: "Lay Me down"--The Oh Hellos]

Day 26:

The following morning everyone tried to drink sparingly from their water.

There were some clouds on the horizon; maybe it would rain.

Still, things were sluggish that morning for everyone.

Sasuke didn't intend to talk to anyone about the night before's awkward moments, but Momo approached him.

"I'm sorry if they offended you," she said kindly. "Sometimes they don't know when to quit... I don't think they mean any harm, though."

Sasuke considered Momo to be far too nice to be worth taking seriously--most of the time, but every now and then she did show some temper, so perhaps she was a tad more interesting than his teammates.

But of course he wasn't going  to be pleasant to her.

"Why are you talking to me?" he asked in a tone that said she was wasting his time.

Momo frowned a little. "I just wanted to make sure you were all right."

"Do you think your boyfriend will like you talking to me?" Sasuke picked something that would have infuriated most of the ninja girls immediately.

Momo gave him a sideways glance and then glanced back at Shoto, who was certainly giving her a strange look right now, but then he looked away.

"We've agreed that each of us can handle things the way we feel is right," Momo supplied, which was not a typical answer. "So I suppose he won't mind."

"He thinks I'm dangerous." Sasuke didn't know when to drop something. "Don't you agree?"

"Anyone can be dangerous," Momo replied, steadily. "Myself included."

Sasuke did a double take, not sure if that was a threat.

Momo shrugged at him.

"You don't scare me," Sasuke said.

"I wasn't really trying to," Momo said, undisturbed. "Don't you find this intimidation game to be a little juvenile at times?"

The way she said it, like it was obvious and any mature person would have seen it that way, probably had a better effect than she expected.

Sasuke was a brat, but he couldn't bear to have people act as if he was childish. The DJs doing it drove him crazy, and now a girl who was younger than him (currently) doing it was even worse.

"We should be above that," Momo only made it worse by adding, since he said nothing. "I think it's quite primeval."

Sasuke would not admit to her that he had no idea what that meant.

"With that way of thinking, I'm surprised you're with that person at all," he said, with a disdainful glance in Todoroki's direction.

"Do you ever respond to someone without attacking someone else?" Momo asked him, quizzically, as if he was an interesting headcase.

Kabuto used to use almost the same tone, though it was more malicious, and Sasuke cringed inwardly at it.

"Whatever you're trying to accomplish by acting nice," he said aloud, "it's not going to work. And I know you have the same opinion as everyone else, so why don't you stop pretending and go away?"

But that didn't get him the desired result either. Momo just glanced at him like he was a child.

"If that's really what you want, I guess I shouldn't bother you," she said, slowly. "I just wanted to help. I thought it might be kind of lonely, always being the target of the criticism in the group."