A Wild Night!

Chapter 1

The door opened. Grumbling something incoherent under his breath, the man stepped into the darkened apartment. Closing the door behind him with his foot, he shrugged off the green flak jacket he had been wearing, tossing it unceremoniously onto a chair.

He navigated his way through the dark living room, before finding the light. He flicked it on - black eyes having to blink several times as the apartment was illuminated. Now, with the light on, he was free to kick off his sandals, and collapse onto the couch, a groan of relief escaping him.

The man ran a hand through his spiky black hair, grimacing slightly as the sweaty, grimy feel of the dark strands. A shower, he decided, would probably be best - and with much reluctance, he left the safety of the couch, and made the short trek to the bathroom. Shrugging off his clothes as he went, leaving them behind him in a trail, he threw the door to the bathroom open.

Without thinking, he pulled back the screen to the shower, stepped inside, and turned the hot water up to the hottest it could possibly go. The man recoiled at first, as a spray of icy, cold water splattered against his face - but sighed, as the liquid gradually warmed, before becoming an endless stream of steaming hot water that soothed his sore muscles and washed away the filth he had accumulated on his mission.

Uchiha Sasuke hadn't had a very good day.

Early in the morning, before he had even eaten breakfast, Sasuke had been summoned to the Hokage's office. There, he had been given a simple task - track down, and eliminate a prisoner who had managed to escape a team of genin transferring him from the capital to Konoha's awaiting dungeons.

The prisoner was a dangerous, high chunin, low jounin level man. Undoubtedly, he'd been free of his handcuffs within an hour of escaping - and although he may not have a sword, nor the energy to put up a prolonged fight, he was still very crafty, very smart, and more importantly... willing to do anything to evade capture.

Still, he had been relatively close to the village when he had escaped, and with the aid of some merchants who had spotted him scavenging some food early in the afternoon, he had managed to isolate, and hunt down the man.

He put up quite the fight. Unfortunately, Sasuke had finally caught up to the man just before a running river - and the escaped prisoner had used that water source to great effect, considering he was an expert Suiton user. Still, he eventually met his end by Sasuke's blade. The mission had expressly asked that the body be returned to Konoha, so with the man's body safely stored in a scroll, Sasuke had made his way back to the village.

Sasuke had deposited the man's body at the morgue, before going back to the Hokage's office for his debriefing. The usual post-mission activities occurred - a swift check up at the hospital, logging his confirmed kill, receiving his pay - before he was finally able to go home.

And that lead to now, late in the night. Sasuke standing beneath the scalding hot spray of the shower, watching as dried blood and dirt flowed down the drain beneath him. He touched a small, but deep cut on his arm, wincing as it stung. The man had used a sharpened rock at one point... and, well, the hospital staff hadn't deemed it serious enough to require a proper medic nin to heal it. So, he was stuck with it, for now. They had bandaged it, of course, but it still hurt a tad.

It wasn't that much of a bother. Just mildly annoying, if at times extremely annoying when a particularly hot drop of water hit the bandage and sent it stinging all over again.

He washed rather quickly, smoothing shampoo and conditioner through his spiky hair, scrubbing down his body with a bar of soap. By the time he was done, his skin was pink - from a combination of the incredibly hot water, and his vigorous washing.