Wouldn't You Like To Know

Hello to everyone who reads this fic and this latest chapter! Again, updating has slowed to a crawl, but I am again looking at this story and seeing where it will go. Oddly enough, I had this chapter mostly written out until it occured to me that I didn't like where part of it was going, so hello partial revamp. I much prefer this version of the chapter, as it's more reader-friendly, and caused me to laugh during it, a good sign in my book. I hope you will laugh as you read it too.

Once again, I don't own Naruto, but I do own this lovely laptop, a hanging Gaara zipperchain and things that someone who makes god-knows-how-much yen per year on a famous manga/anime wouldn't even care to look at.

~~~()()()~~~

There were some people who made meditation, a solitary activity, into a form of living art. Hyuuga Neji looked like a perfect scuplture when communing with himself and nature. Sitting in a pose that no one else but a master of yoga would be able to assume, he made the posture look like a position anyone could fold themselves into.

On the day his fanclub had managed to discover his meditation area (the day before he had moved it), a lot of them had had to have immidiate medical attention for badly sprained muscles, pinched nerves and, in the case of one or two of the girls who had really wanted to impress him, dislocated joints. Needless to say, Neji had made sure to make his new place of inner contemplation a much less accessible-to-the-public location.

Sasuke, not one to ignore a good example, did the same.

Few people would find his place, and those who did would have been hard-pressed to follow him. The people crazy enouogh to try would either be seriously injured or quickly dissuaded from the idea. Kami-sama bless whoever it was who kept the Forest of Death as it is.

Though the Forest was a dangerous place for one to stay in for an extended period of time, there were a couple of places inside that were pleasant enough for as long as one was there. Sasuke had discovered many of these places the hard way when, out of outward contempt (well-disguised terror and disgust for anyone else), he had run into the Forest to escape some of his genin fangirls. Currently, he sat in one of them, trying to arrange his limbs into something that bore less resemblance to a tangled knot. Not very easy to get comfortable in a tree...

Finally getting himself out of his knot, he settled in for a period of reflection. His muscles relaxed, and his mind, trained for times such as this, emptied of thought until he was only breathing deeply, feeling the rhythm of the forest in his heartbeat, feeling peace flowing softly through his body--

BOOM!

What the fuck was that?!

Had Sasuke not been wedged so tightly into his perch, he would have startled himself into falling. As it was, the quick movements he had made to free his arms resulted in some scrapes from the rough tree bark. He barely felt them as he freed himself from the spot and raced in the direction of the sound. Is there an invasion?! It better not be Orochimaru; we took him down with our own bare hands and jutsu...

While his mind was frantically trying to come up with reasons for such a loud sound, his feet here helping move him from branch to branch, then from place-of-cover to place-of-cover as the trees ended. Reaching one of the traning grounds, he skidded to a halt as the sound repeated itself, almost making him wish he could stab himself in the head with a kunai because surely it would be less painful than being close to the generators of the noise.

Ears still ringing, Sasuke concealed himself in a nearby bush, waiting patiently to see who was making the infernal racket.

A pink blur dropped out of a tree with a yellow blur in close pursuit. The pink blur ricocheted off a tree trunk and met with the yellow blur in a whirl of color and flesh striking flesh.

Is that...Sakura and Naruto? The ringing in his ears had dissipated, leaving him the total sum of his considerable brainpower to appreciate and analyze the scene before him.

Sakura hit to Naruto’s stomach--leg up to block, she tangled it with her foot, jerked him off balance--no, wait, he went with the pull and bodyslammed her to the ground...

As he watched, the fast-paced taijutsu bout degenerated into a first-class, rolling and punching brawl. So much for technique...I’d have thought better if Naruto were the one doing it, but Sakura too? He shook his head and started to frown, but something stopped him. First of all...she’s taking Naruto’s hits, and I have a hard time with that... Even as he looked on, Naruto drove a knee right to her midsection that caused her to give a grunt he heard clearly at his distance...but she didn’t even pause. Highly impressive.

Something occured to him. Second...Naruto isnt’ wearing a shirt.

The dobe had absorbed enough sun during his (Sasuke couldn’t quite keep the sneer from his lips) outdoor nap yesterday for his skin to appear as a mellow gold in color. Bruises from his spar with Sakura were visible, but even as Sasuke watched, the discolorations were shrinking and fading back into his skin. Sasuke found the healing displace strangely compelling. With the fight going on and Sakura giving Naruto more bruises to match the ones that had healed, the healing-over of those minor injuries caused ever-changing patterns to dance over Naruto’s exposed torso. Strange...it’s almost hypnotic...

***||***

“What is he doing over there?”
“Looks like he’s spying on us.”
“Why would he do that? Why isn’t he joining in?”
“Guess he found something interesting about our fight out there.”

Sakura and Naruto, sitting in a tree overlooking the practice grounds, watched as their clones fought out the battle they had half-planned earlier while Sasuke watched.

“Looks like my new jutsu works great,” Naruto commented, smiling broadly. “Even the bastard’s fooled.”
“It’ll be a great help when we’re on missions together,” Sakura replied, smiling almost as widely. “People in other villages already expect us all to fight at certain moments, some of us more than others--”
“Hey,” Naruto interjected.
“--so now we can use it as a form of bait,” Sakura continued, oblivious to the expected objection. “No better way to get them to sneak up on ‘us’ than when we’re ‘arguing.’” She made little finger-crooks when she mentioned the parts the clones would play.
“I did good,” Naruto fox-grinned at her. “I’m proud of myself.”
“You should be,” Sakura praised him. “Now let’s dissipate the clones and go. The spar we had before is starting to catch up with me.”
“Sounds like a plan. The shower’s calling my name too.”

Naruto took off at a slow (for him) pace, but something made Sakura hesitate to do the same. She knew the clones would poof out once Naruto started doing things of a non-ninja nature (and really, what is more peaceful than a shower?), but that wasn’t what had held her back.

She was looking at the expression on Sasuke’s face...and puzzling over what she thought she was finding.

~~~()()~~~

An author whose work I greatly admire once said that she didn't believe that emotional trauma could be cured with (and I'm quoting) "the healing cock o'love," and I am in perfect agreement. Whatever issues I choose to give my personifications of the Naruto cast are mine alone to give, and I will not cure them with night-long sex. Point of fact, it's not physically possible to continuously have sex over the course of a usual night.

There have to be bathroom breaks, hydration breaks, etc., because to have sex, there needs to be appropriate hydration for both men and women because (if you're a woman) you're going to start finding the friction uncomfortable instead of pleasurable without appropriate libation, and for men...well, the little swimmers can't swim if there isn't any liquid.

Here ends my tirade. Please be free with the critiques, because I read every one and make adjustments as necessary...and I like hearing from you. Any of my old fans out there? I think about you a lot...