Chapter 25 - Promise

[D] - Talk with Yamato about Karin.

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Chapter 25 - Promise

…

As he lay down in his bed, Shinji's body was engulfed by the softness of the mattress and he relaxed a little. It was strange, he was usually used to his body aching from training when he went to bed, and never really got to appreciate just how nice it was to lay around sometimes.

Shinji went through many ideas and thoughts. Each new idea would get replaced by a plan, but they soon were dismissed. His mind couldn't help but think of a certain someone.

He never had thoughts of worrying about anybody in this life. But the red-haired girl, Karin, the one who had saved Kota's life. Shinji was grateful to her, Kota was one of his best friends, and a dear teammate.

Closing his eyes, Shinji could vividly remember the girl's arms, neck, and midsection. Full of bite marks, and the way she looked at her teammates, with anger and rage.

But what can he do? He isn't someone with a lot of influence or someone powerful.

"Whatcha thinking about?"

Turning around, he glimpsed at Sayuri, laying down on the bed, her long dark hair shuffling about as her soft blue eyes stared back at him.

She seemed relieved and happy. As if a huge weight had rolled off her shoulders.

"Don't tell me, you're going to train?" Sayuri asked, with a drained sigh. "It feels like we were in that forest forever. How about we rest for a change?"

"There's something worrying me. I don't know whether doing this is the best course of action." Shinji stated.

He didn't know a lot about the semi-politics involved with Ninja.

Maybe if he becomes a powerful ninja in the future he might have to get involved with that, but for now, such things are too far out of his reach.

So he planned to ask Yamato for some advice on what he should do next.

Shinji knew the reality of his situation, and how unimportant he was to anyone in the village and was just another disposable pawn.

People saw him as talented, but he knew the truth of that too, an illusion that will crumble as soon as he stops working hard.

Suddenly, the sound of air being cut by a thrown object tickled his ears. As a ninja, he was very sensitive like this, and before he could comprehend it, his body moved, recognizing that this wasn't the sound a kunai made when it was thrown.

Twisting his body, he caught the object by its tip, and by the time he registered what had happened. He noticed that it was a pillow. Shinji was still in fight or flight mode and contemplated throwing the pillow far away as it might have an explosive tag attached to it.

But he crushed such instincts with an iron fist as soon as they came.

He raised a questioning brow to Sayuri, the Pillow Thrower.

"You should relax. It's always about doing something with you."

A mischievous smirk danced on her lips, as she teased him.

He smiled back, glancing at the pillow on his hand. "You're stupidly smart somestimes."

"Hehehe, you're going to have to give up," she stood up, ignoring Shini's comment. With hands on her hips, she declared. "My ultimate pillow fighting technique is-"

Before she could finish, Shinji threw the pillow and with strength born from countless hours of training, the pillow flew through the air like a kunai and landed on her face. The momentum pushed her back down on the bed.

"Pah!" Her hair became disheveled, and she pouted. Her posture was like that of an annoyed cat ready to pounce.

"What? You can dish it out, but can't take it?" Shinji smirked, he also felt a warmness inside his chest. It was nice to have people care about you. In the orphanage, he was the average kid, the one that even the matrons rarely remembered his name.

Sayuri's eyes widened as she quickly glanced down. "Y, You should smile a little more."

Kota chuckled for some reason Shinji couldn't quite understand. The swordsman Genin glanced toward Shinji, and then back at Sayuri, his chuckle became even louder. "For all your intelligence you're quite oblivious sometimes."

Shinji tilted his head. "Oblivious? How? I am not the best out there, that's obvious. But between us, I was the one who always interacted with our clients in D Rank missions."

Kota suddenly got a mischievous smirk as he glanced at Sayuri. "Well, there's this girl and she has-"

He wasn't able to talk anymore, as Sayuri with agility she usually didn't use threw a pillow at such speed and power that Kota fell out of his bed. "I'll kill you if you say a word more."

Shinji was surprised by this. His team was fighting amongst each other?! He had never noticed this before, he always assumed that as a team they were quite friendly.

'I can think about this later, right now this needs to be stopped from escalating,' thought Shinji.

He was behind Sayuri within an instant, twisting her arm behind her back. "Calm down. We shouldn't be fighting amongst each other."

Sayuri squirmed under his grasp and tried to get away.

"L, Let go of me," she whined (?) Sayuri never whined. Also, her voice sounded soft and more girly than before.

"Bahahaha!" Kota for some reason found the situation hilarious. "Oh, God, this is too good! Bahahaha!" he was rolling on the ground while holding his stomach, barely able to breathe. "Shinji, you, you, Bahahahah! Sayuri, she likes you."

Sayuri's body immediately grew rigid within his grasp, and she didn't turn around to meet his eyes. With the firm grasp on her arm, Shinji felt Sayuri's pulse quicken.

'Was she worried about something?'

"Likes me?" Shinji was no fool and immediately caught on to what was going on.

Sayuri liked him? That's good because he liked her too, she has been an amazing teammate.

She always helped him in every turn of the way, and had always been there for him when he needed help.

"I like her too, she's an amazing teammate and friend," he declared with a smile.

"That's… okay…" Sayuri sighed and looked down in disappointment, while Kota chuckled like a mad man. How was he so full of energy? Two minutes ago he was almost ready to go to sleep.

Shinji shook his head at this. But he was happy, and the smile on his face wouldn't go away.

These small fleeting moments were something that made this team worth something in his eyes.

"Anyways, I'm going to try and find Yamato -sensei. I need to talk to him about something."

Sayuri's gaze became sharp at that, while Kota glanced at him too. But the latter was laying on his bed and ready to fall asleep, today hadn't been an easy day for him.

"I feel like you're going to do something I'm not going to like. Explain," her words were sharp like a razor.

Shinji saw no reason to hide this from her.

…

Shinji explained to his teammates about Karin and how he planned to try and convince Yamato -sensei to have her 'die' and join Konoha after her fake death. Or something like that.

Or at least that was the last resort as he didn't want to try and expose himself too much. She had saved Kota and Shinji was grateful to her and wanted to at least try and help her.

Sayuri stared at him and shook her head. "Shinji, this isn't a good idea to get involved with. You should know that you aren't that valuable to the village. Do you know what happened to the Hyuga Clan? They protected their clan members from being kidnapped and the Hokage still…"

She didn't need to say anything more as Shinji understood what she was getting at. This situation was dangerous. "Don't worry, I'm not going to sacrifice myself for Karin, or anything like that. It's just a simple request to Yamato -sensei."

"Promise me that if he refuses, you will accept that and move on," Sayuri insisted.

Seeing no response, she continued. "I know one day you will become a Ninja, like any rarely seen before. By then you can afford to save people. So promise me right now, that if Yamato -sensei tells you there's nothing he can do about it, then you'll drop this.

Shinji glanced toward Kota for his input. This could be a decision that will affect the whole team.

His friend stared at the ceiling deep in thought, before sighing and nodding. "I appreciate that she saved me. But I don't want something to happen to you because of me. So I agree with Sayuri."

*****

[Choose one of the choices, and white it down in the comments below:]

A - Accept Sayuri's promise.

B - Accept Sayuri's promise. (lie)

C - Don't promise Sayuri anything. This will anger Sayuri and Kota will be displeased.

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A/N: Shinji is about as socially observant for certain things as a harem protagonist. His luck is really strange, almost always bad at small things like this.