Burning Courage: Hinata Shines! - 7

"You're such an irresponsible guy," Tama said quietly, dabbing at the puncture marks along Sato's torso with a cotton swab, "I can't believe you went out there…"

They sat facing each other on a bench inside of her bakery. A first aid kit had been splayed open on the floor messily and a sign hung in the glass of the front door that read: 'be back in five minutes!'

It was probably going to take more than five minutes to inspect Sato's wounds, Tama suspected, but her customers wouldn't mind waiting a little while.

"Ow." Sato had his shirt pulled up over his head and he winced every time Tama touched a particularly bloody spot, "Owie….eh…ow….eck! You're doing that on purpose!" He accused, "That hurts you know!"

"I'm not! You're just a big weenie, so will you hold still already?" She seized him about his shoulders, cautiously, and held him in place, "I'm sorry, Sato, but I wouldn't have to be doing this if you hadn't put yourself in jeopardy…yet again."

"…I had to go." He said gently and Tama frowned, a bit unnerved by the dutiful inflection of his voice.

She sighed after a moment, exasperated, "I guess you did…but I still don't see why you didn't just tell me first. You know I wouldn't have stopped you…and I would've liked to have helped too."

Sato scratched his chin, "Well you see your dad wouldn't have thanked me for that. He can barely stand me already."

"Stop talking rubbish!"

"No really! I think he's out to kill me, maybe!" Sato protested, flinching when she had found another stinging wound, "You think he'd stand for his lovely, innocent daughter being dragged into a dangerous mission with a hooligan like me?"

She smiled, "No…but I don't care what he thinks."

"You slay me, Tama, really…"

Tama began wrapping up his injuries after she'd disinfected them. After a long, quiet minute Sato added, "Don't worry about it. I know Naruto-kun and Sunshine will pull through! For now we just have to sit back and wait."

He gave a startled jump when a young, freckled girl walked into the room unexpectedly. He nearly knocked Tama off of the bench, and she quickly turned around to see what had startled him.

"How'd you get in here?" Sato asked, jumpily, and the girl wearing an apron gave him a confused look from behind the counter.

"Uh…I work here."

Tama frowned at the young Hatake, "You've got to chill out. She's not an enemy ninja, Sato, she works here. It's a bakery after all…"

Her fellow employee began stacking fresh bread on the shelves, and asked over her shoulder, "Sheesh, Tama-neechan! What the heck is his problem?"

"There's a whole list of them, Ami, but let's not discuss it here."

Sato scowled, but yelped in pain when Tama again proceeded to wrap up his boo boos. Ami, by some stroke of good fortune, was able to completely disregard them and continued stocking the display shelves.

"You're right about one thing, though," Tama said at length, "If either of my parents hear about me having to patch you up when I'm supposed to be working…or you just coming home with holes in you, they will definitely not be happy."

"You got that right." He agreed, sulkily. Sato turned his gaze out to the front window of the shop while Tama went about swathing the rest of his wounds. By some twist of fate, he spotted Shino walking past in the direction of the Hokage's tower.

He couldn't hold still.

"Shino's back!" Sato leapt up, and this time he did knock Tama off of the bench, "Oh, sorry Tama! I'll be right back," He sprang for the door, shirtless, and hollering for his teammate, "Shino! Over here! Shino!"

"Get back here!" Tama scrambled out the door after the empty-headed fool, "You're still bleeding for heaven's sake! Can't you wait?"

Ami watched the two of them have a footrace down the street to catch up to the startled Aburame boy, 'Those two were made for each other…'

*

"Someone is coming, Naruto-kun." Hinata announced softly as they raced through the treetops. They had covered a great distance in a short amount of time, but Naruto's stamina was beginning to wane.

He looked over to her nervously, watching his shadow clone carry her through the canopy, "Right…is it a Sound ninja?"

"No, I'm not, Naruto." Kakashi descended with Pakkun beside him, and both Naruto and his doppelganger halted at the sight of a fellow Leaf shinobi. Kakashi observed that Naruto had been escorting both Haku and Hinata back to the village, and Haku most especially looking a bloody mess, "What happened?"

"I tried to stop him, but Sasuke, he…" Naruto's voice trailed off, "He did this to Haku and he was only trying to help."

It was quiet for a moment, and Kakashi then sighed, understanding, "It's too late then, I see. I'm sorry. I wish I had gotten here sooner to put a stop to it."

He moved to the shadow clone that was guarding Hinata and relieved it of its duty.

He pulled the Hyuga girl onto his back and she pouted slightly, much preferring Naruto's company. Kakashi could sense it too, and he chuckled quietly, "I'm sorry, Hinata-hime, but I suspect Naruto-kun is low on chakra now. Let's give him a break, hm?"

She blushed, wondering if it was that obvious.

Naruto's legs were a bit shaky, but he still felt he had enough energy to bring himself and his teammate back to Konoha. He glanced over to Kakashi as they set out, "I'm sorry about all of this, but I have to say…anyone who tries to hurt my friends is a person I can't trust."

"And that is the truth of it, Naruto." Kakashi agreed, finding his heart was not as heavy at losing Sasuke as he had anticipated it to be.

*

After agonizing over the paperwork with Lee and Tenten's help, Shikamaru had handed in the forms and found a quiet bench down the hall, wanting to put some space between himself and the remainder of Team 13.

He sat with his head in his hands, feeling like a complete failure. Shikamaru had been trying to ignore the painful feeling of how he'd been responsible for his team's welfare, and in the end he was unsure if most of them would survive.

Down the corridor he could see that Maito Gai had returned, and was loudly trying to cheer up his students. Even Lee appeared inconsolable, though, and Gai was taking their dampened spirits as a sign that Neji could be lost from their team at any moment.

He did his best to look optimistic in front of his anxious pupils.

Shikamaru tore his gaze away from them, feeling miserable, 'If they lose Neji it'll all be on me. I shouldn't have left him…' A tear slid down his nose, 'And I shouldn't have left Naruto or Hinata either! Now there's nothing I can do about it! They're still out there and they could be dead…I wouldn't even know it!'

"I don't want to do this anymore!" Shikamaru muttered, demoralized, "If this is what a chunin has to put up with then I don't want to be one! I should just quit being a ninja…all of this is just…"

"Too troublesome?"

Startled, he looked up and saw his father standing in front of him, wearing a disapproving expression, "Pull yourself together, Shikamaru. Did you really believe that things would become easier as you gained rank as a shinobi?"

"Of course not!"

"And even so, against your very nature to avoid exerting yourself or exposing yourself to pain and hardship, you believed that you could still guide your friends when they needed a leader," Shikaku reminded him, "You should know better than to expect every mission having a fairytale ending."

"But I led all of them to ruin! It's my fault they're hurt!" Shikamaru protested, staring up at his father, "I can't accept that."

"All the same," Shikaku went on, "Would you rather someone else doing it in your place? Some other ninja being responsible for the success or destruction of your friends? To give up on yourself is to abandon them, Shikamaru."

His son calmed down considerably.

Shikaku patted Shikamaru's head, "Learn from this mission. From now on be a stronger leader and a stronger friend. Don't give in to every heartache that comes your way, Shikamaru, because I promise you, you will encounter many of them in your life."

After a long moment, he agreed, "Alright, Dad. I think I get what you're saying." Shikaku smiled, still proud that his son had done as well as he had on his first mission as a chunin.

Down the hall there was a commotion and Shikamaru turned to see two teams of shinobi had returned. One of them was led by Shizune, and Shikaku went to her, handing over an antidote that she would need to administer to Chouji.

The second team was led by Hayate, having been successful in recovering Shizune's lost team. After directing his subordinates to rest and file a mission report, Hayate went to where Tenten had been sitting with Lee to make sure she was alright.

Shikamaru decided then that sulking was not helping anyone, and instead of sitting by himself he crossed the hall to where Lee and Tenten were.

*

Sakura rolled over, letting her eyes blink open slowly. She was immediately aware of her surroundings for they were all too familiar. Her bed was neatly made beneath her and she was spread out on top of it, her face resting on her pillow. In a way, the softness and comfort upset her. If she was home it meant she was safe, but it meant Sasuke was still out there on his own.

The pink haired girl could distinguish shouting coming from outside of her room. Her parents were downstairs arguing again, about her, she assumed. It was bad enough she had run off and scared the living daylights out of them, but Sakura suspected they had given Gaara a chilly if not distrustful reception when he had brought her home.

She frowned inwardly. Gaara certainly had nerve, knocking her out like he had. She'd be sure to chide him about it later, but she felt more giddy and scatterbrained at the thought of the red haired nin than she did upset with him.

Sakura lifted herself from her bed and stretched. She momentarily considered going downstairs and explaining everything to her parents, 'That'll take forever and they probably won't want to listen anyway…'

She went for option B to escape her room via window.

She peaked into the hallway outside of her bedroom door discreetly, and saw her parents were still in a hotly contested shouting match, 'How can they blame each other at a time like this? I'm the one who ran away!'

Sakura pulled on her sandals, considering what she should do, 'I guess I'll go wait for Gaara-kun. He must've gone back to help the others after he took care of me.' Her brow furrowed in disappointment, 'After the way he acted back in the forest I was so sure that he…well…I thought that he might stay for me.'

After she snuck out of her open window and dropped down to the ground level she paused. Sakura gawked at the three ninja sitting on her front step, all napping.

She couldn't contain her joy, "You DID stay!"

The three of them jerked awake and blinked over to Sakura. The pink haired girl was grinning, and went over to greet the sand siblings with a new bounce in her step. Kankuro smirked playfully at the sight of his younger brother's starry-eyed gaze.

"You certainly caused quite a bit of trouble, Sakura," Temari yawned, pleasantly though, "We're glad to have you back."

Sakura frowned slightly, "I really am sorry about that. I tried to fix everything by myself, but I guess…I guess that wasn't too smart, was it?"

Temari shrugged unflappably, "It wasn't. But I have a feeling you won't pull anything like that again, so make sure your Hokage knows it."

Sakura looked to Gaara but she couldn't find anything to say. He looked happy to see her, but a slight bit of apprehension was visible in his expression. She had a feeling he thought she was angry with him for punching her earlier, which she was, but now probably wasn't the time to bring it up.

She hugged him, scooching in between her target and Kankuro who made an annoyed sound at being pushed aside for such a mushy action. Gaara ignored his siblings' awkward faces completely as he wrapped his arms around her, "I don't think you're aware that a retrieval team went out to search for Haku and Sasuke. It shouldn't take much longer for them to get back."

Sakura pulled back, looking at him in puzzlement, "Did you say Haku-kun left? There's no way! Why would he do something like that?"

"He wouldn't," Gaara confirmed, kissing her shoulder and Kankuro snickered at Temari's traumatized face, "He was probably taken by force. You didn't see him when you were with Sasuke?"

"No, I didn't. They must have met up somewhere else or….I don't know," Sakura pulled away from him again and stood up, looking dutiful, "I want to go back there and help!"

Gaara smirked, "That isn't possible. By now they're probably beyond the borders of the Fire Country, and Tsunade-sama wouldn't let a fugitive like you back out of the village anyway."

She sighed, disheartened, but he stood up as well and turned to his brother and sister, "I think now's as good a time as any to bring Sakura to Hokage-sama so she can explain herself. What do you think?"

Temari stood up and linked arms with the younger girl, "Sounds like a good idea," She grinned mischievously at Sakura, "Come on you little criminal, let's get going."

Sakura sighed in annoyance and went ahead with Temari.

Kankuro stood and jammed his hands in his pockets, shaking his head at his younger brother, "You sure pick out the craziest girls, you know that?"

"I've only ever picked one, actually," Gaara replied, haughtily, "And I'm grateful she's a bit strange in some respects, otherwise she wouldn't be able to keep up with me."

He walked ahead of his brother and Kankuro blinked stupidly, finding his brother's reasoning just as disquieting as it was accurate, 'They're all loony birds in this village.'