The Traveling Pussy

Chapter 20: Tsunade’s Decision

Sakura came back into the room after a while. “How’s Kakashi doing?” I asked.

She looked at me like I was an idiot and said, “He’s perfectly fine; you’re the one in the hospital.”

I hated when she got all superior like that. “Oh, yea, he’s fine. He was trying to loan me his copy of Icha, Icha Paradise, he wasn’t wearing his mask, and he acted like he cared that I forgave him for breaking my rib—as if I was some kind of threat. Now, tell me Sakura—Miss Medical Expert--just how normal that is for Kakashi?”

“What?” screamed Sakura, “No, I don’t believe it! You are lying!”

I sighed. I almost never got along with other women unless they were gay or too old to care about men. “Fine, don’t believe me! Who broke my rib then?”

Sakura suddenly got very medical. She made a number of handseals for a jutsu that I assume was to check for injuries since it didn’t seem to involve any healing—or at least none I could feel. She made me follow her finger with my eyes, stick out my tongue, and asked those dumb questions about how many fingers, what year was it, etc. It was obvious she had decided I was just babbling nonsense related to my head injury.

She left the room, and once again I was alone tied to the bed. I thought about Sakura’s extreme response to my comments on Kakashi and decided that it was likely the comment on his face that put her over the edge. As his former student, she had likely been dying to see that face of his. Poor girl, she didn’t have the right equipment. He seemed to like dark-haired males. Hmmm. No wonder Sasuke had been his prized student, the one he taught his famous Chidori jutsu, too.

I thought about that famous Team 7 of the academy class one year before me. Hell, all three of the genin teams that had come out of the academy the year before I graduated had been exceptional. It had been depressing to my team that we weren’t even nominated for the chuunin exam until we’d been genins for two years. Team 7 was often talked about in whispers. A few folks had started calling Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto, “The Little Sannins.” It was weird how each one of the team had ending up with one of the famous Legendary Sannins: Sasuke with Orochimaru, Sakura with Tsunade, and Naruto with Jiraiya. Orochimaru had killed their sensei, the great Third Hokage. People sometimes wondered if Sasuke would come back and try to kill Kakashi some day. I doubted it—the new Team Kakashi was pretty amazing.

Yamato and Sai, two reassigned ANBU members, combined with Naruto and Kakashi to make one of Konaha’s most lethal teams. Once Kakashi and Yamato had started training Naruto, his improvement had been astounding. There were other whispers about Naruto being possessed not just by the nine-tailed fox, but by the spirit of the Fourth, the famous Yellow Flash himself, who had died sealing the Kyuubi into Naruto’s infant body. To me, that rumor was just pathetic. A lot people couldn’t accept that dead was dead. They looked for any reason to find evidence that their loved one was still alive. Naruto was no Yondaime, but he might some day be a Hokage.
I was suddenly glad that I had never slept with Naruto. He had just always seemed to have too many problems on his plate. He also had his own stalker in Hyuuga Hinata, Neji’s cousin. I wasn’t going to cross her. Even though a lot of people thought Hinata was the loser of the Hyuuga claim, not being as talented as Neji or her little sister Hanabi, I didn’t think sleeping with Naruto was worth pissing off a Hyuuga. My family had always been on the outs with the Hyuuga clan, so maybe that was why I’d always tried to stay away from them and anyone the Hyuuga’s had marked as under their protection.

I could hear people outside the door of my hospital room. Sakura, Shizune, and Tsunade came into the room. The sight of Tsunade was not good.

“Do you know why I am here?” demanded Tsunade in that loud, powerful voice of hers.

I had just been thinking about Team Kakashi, so I said, “You’re here to tell me I’ve been reassigned to Team Kakashi.”

Not one of the women burst into laughter or even smiled in that way that indicated she recognized a feeble attempt at humor. It suddenly occurred to me that maybe that was what was up with Kakashi and the no mask thing. He was checking me out to see if I could handle the sight of his unmasked face or something.

“Well, you are one of the chuunin candidates whose name he has suggested. So, tell me, do you think I should assign you to Team Kakashi?”

One of the chuunin candidates—oh my, then Iruka had to be on that list too. “No, I think Iruka should be reassigned to Team Kakashi. Get Yamato back to ANBU since their sorry asses need somebody to get them in line. I can deal with the kiddies as long as Ibiki and Kakashi aren’t allowed into the academy.”

Tsunade and Shizune exchanged significant glances. Sakura looked shocked and confused.

After a moment that seemed long to me, Tsunade said, “I can assure you Kakashi will not be a problem at the academy, but I fail to see why Ibiki should be one either. How will Ibiki prevent you from, ah, `dealing with the kiddies,’ I believe was the term you used?”

Oh, crap, there was no way I was going to admit I became an incompetent fool around Ibiki. I tried to backpaddle and apologize, “I’m sorry Tsunade-sama; it was wrong and inappropriate of me to imply that Kakashi-sensei and Ibiki-san are not valuable teachers and assets to Konoha.”

“Ah,” said Tsunade and then she turned and left. Shizune and Sakura followed her out. I was left tied down to the hospital bed. I didn’t know what to think. I decided that it wasn’t really a situation in which thinking would help a lot anyway. Kakashi had said Uzuki was alive, and she had broken my arm first. I don’t think breaking an arm is a normal interrogation procedure—ok, maybe it is for ANBU. I shouldn’t have been in interrogation anyway—what was I guilty of—using an occupied bathroom? That was hardly something that called for ANBU interrogation and being stripped of all my weapons. This whole day didn’t make sense. I was hungry, thirsty, and sore, but it didn’t seem worth breaking out of my bonds just for a drink of water and a snack. When I had to go to the bathroom, I would think about getting mobile.

I decided to just relax and let things unfold. I focused on meditating and emptying my mind of everything but an awareness of the present. I had to admit I like being in a crisis situation, which is probably why I ended up in them so often. When you are in a crisis, a lot of your options are taken away, which makes it so much easier to just focus on living in the now without any worries about the future. If you really live in the moment, life can be so much more intense and interesting. I was tied to a bed in a hospital. The Hokage herself was fine with that. Changing the situation seemed like a dumb idea. The bed was pretty soft, and the bonds didn’t hurt. The view outside the window was of sunset.

I hadn’t watched a sunset since exactly two weeks ago, the day I started sleeping with Ibiki. It seemed like such a long time ago. I started to feel near tears thinking about Ibiki, so I just concentrated on looking at the sunset, memorizing each color of it as if it was my last sunset.

The sunset was slow and beautiful. The village lights gradually came on, as the sky darkened from a deep blue to a navy to a steel grey before finally becoming the black of moonless night. The lights of the city looked pretty. I had liked working at night for those two months on the gate.

I could hear people coming down the hall. The door to my room opened, and the light went on. It was Shizune and Sakura. I kept quiet waiting for them to initiate speech.

“We are going to release you. Are you going to cause trouble?” asked Shizune.

“No,” I replied.

“You are being retired from active duty as a shinobi. Here is the pay you are owed for service to date and two-weeks severance pay.” Shizune pulled an envelope out of her pocket and set it on a rolling hospital table beside her. “Konoha reserves the right to call on you when needed, but for now your services are not needed by your village. You will need to find employment or register with the department of unemployment. Are you going to make trouble?”

“No,” I said, feeling numb.

“Here are the keys to your apartment,” said Shizune pulling out a familiar silver keyring and placing it on the envelope. I hadn’t seen that keyring for two weeks since I’d stripped off my clothes in Ibiki’s office. She added, “You will find your rent has been paid for one month. You will have to negotiate with your landlord about remaining there after that period of time. Do you have any questions for me?”

I just shook my head no. I was feeling like I was going to cry if I tried to talk. Shizune nodded at me and left. Sakura undid the bonds. “Do you need any help?” she asked. I just lay on the bed, not moving. I shook my head again. Sakura bit her lip and looked a little nervous. “Ok, well, ah, your clothes are in bathroom. You don’t need to check out or anything; you can just leave when you're ready. The staff will come into clean this room at about 9 o’clock, so please be out of here by then.”

I turned my head to look up at the clock. It was 7:48 p.m. I nodded to Sakura. Like Shizune she just nodded back and left.

My wristwatch and wallet were in the bathroom. There was a plain dark blue kimono and sandals. I realized that I would not get my uniform and weapons back. I threw up in the toilet. I took the money and the keys and left. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go back to that apartment. It would be too full of memories of Ibiki. I couldn’t go to that ANBU building. But after wandering around for an hour or so, I found myself there. Konoha’s QuickMovers, the fastest and best moving company in town, were loading furniture and boxes into a number of carts. I didn’t see a single ANBU nin. I just started walking again, walking anywhere.

I ended up going to the park near the academy. It was the park where Ibiki and I had planned to sneak out for lunch to celebrate one week of my working, two weeks of our being together, although that second part had never been talked about. I sat on a bench and just listening to the night and looking at the stars. I could feel the tears running down my face as I focused on identifying each star and trying to remember everything I could about its name and the legends associated with it. The tears soon stopped. I could feel two strips of salty skin running from the ends of my eyes to my chin. After a while, I couldn’t feel anything.

When that soft greyness started filling the sky that meant dawn was coming, I got up and started to walk to my old apartment, suddenly feeling peaceful and eager to get on with life. It was a new day, a Saturday morning. I didn’t have a job, so what? I had my skills and talents, some money, and a month’s rent paid on an apartment I liked. So what that I hadn’t seen my boyfriend for fifteen hours or so? He was probably having to deal with moving out of his office and his apartment, and maybe even fighting to keep his job too. If he thought I was going to give up on him, he was wrong. I was finished with feeling pathetic and full of self-pity.

In just one week of teaching, I had my eye on three kids at the ninja academy that were orphans and lacking friends and family—two boys, aged 10 and 12, and a girl of 11. As a teacher and a soldier of Konoha, I had all sorts of codes and protocols and traditions limiting what was appropriate to say and do. As a citizen, I could do a lot more. They would make a great genin team. Ok, so they were different ages and in different classes, but that could be dealt with—graduation depended on skill, not age. Maybe I could even adopt them. I could be a mom. I could do something more important than worry about my sex life.

I had a sudden vision of Ibiki and "my" three orphans sitting around a table as I brought in a birthday cake. None of them (except for the youngest boy) would want to act enthusiastic about birthday cake, candles, presents, and singing “Happy Birthday.” And inside all of those silent ones—Ibiki, Ritsuka, and Mikage--would be dying with delight, but too damn proud to admit it.

Mikage was the eleven-year-old girl, by the way. Having recently been treated by the male medical ninja, Mikage, when I started working at the academy, her name had been the first thing I noticed. Bizarrely, she too wanted to go into medicine. But as a female orphan like me, she wasn’t the most stable child. Well, I had clearly messed up my life. Maybe I could prevent another female orphan from making the same mistakes. I suddenly decided to just head over to Falling Leaf Square and grab some breakfast from one of the little cafés. Then I was going to go explore every bit of that ANBU building I could get into. I had been sleeping there less than 24 hours ago. There had to be a lot I could figure out from checking out the place. I needed to stop and pick up a notepad at a shop too—I had to get planning and make some lists.

I picked up my pace as I headed toward the popular downtown square for some breakfast. I had places to go and people to see, no time for lingering.