Current mood:	silly
Entry tags:	fic, naruto, sai, sakura

[FIC] Rare Creatures - Naruto - Team Kakashi (minus Kakashi)
HAY YOU GUYS DON'T CHANGE THE CHANNEL - THIS ONE'S COMPLETE! For srs, when I was going through my fic folder to look for incomplete stuff to brush off and archive here, I managed to unearth an actual oneshot that was actually complete. I even remember writing it - nushi_akubi, bless her beautiful soul - and I were looking at some awesome scans from the 2008 Naruto manga calendar, and we couldn't get over the randomness that was this picture. "WTF GIANT KOI!" we said, laughing uncontrollably. "Now that's funny!"

The conversation turned to how useless I've been lately with writing something/anything/shopping lists, and Molly challenged me to write a fic that involved Naruto riding a giant koi. And oh, I had twenty minutes.

This is that fic.

Title: Rare Creatures
Series: Naruto
Length: 1084 words, which is pretty much a drabble by my wordy, wordy standards.
Character/pairing: Naruto, Sakura, Sai. And LOL WTF GIANT KOI!
Rating/warnings: No warnings, except that I wrote it in a rush.
Summary: Naruto is a special boy.



“Not that I am complaining,” said Sai, with the sort of friendly smile that was meant to prove to the world he was not, in fact, complaining, “but why have we been relegated to genin-level missions this week?”

Sakura sent him an annoyed look, bringing one of her gloved hands up to brush away the sweat beading on her forehead. It was far too hot to be traipsing around Konoha collecting lost kittens, but Tsunade had been absolutely vehement and she couldn’t really blame her, considering what Naruto had done. “Oh, you’d like to know, would you?” she said with a touch of bitterness, scowling at their other teammate. “Well, I could tell you, but I really think it’d be best coming from the mouth of the person who landed us in this mess.”

Naruto carefully shifted both the kittens he was holding to one arm. “Well,” he hedged, using his free hand to push his hitai-ate into his sweat-damp hair, “um...it’s a long story.”

Sai held his own kitten away from his abdomen, stopping it from scratching at his skin. “It seems we have a long afternoon ahead of us, Naruto-kun.”

“Meow,” agreed one of the two kittens Sakura was holding, wriggling in her grasp and sticking its little pink tongue out in the hopes of getting some air. She couldn’t blame it – they were suffering through the hottest summer in nearly a century, and she would have preferred to spend the day down at the river or lying on her bedroom floor with a pedestal fan blasting over her skin. Instead, thanks to Naruto’s escapades the day before, they’d been forced into a mission Konohamaru would have stuck his nose up at, rounding up a litter of kittens that had wandered away from their owner that morning. She and Naruto had two each, and Sai, whose amazing social skills apparently extended to animals, was having a great deal of difficulty with one. They needed one more and then they could report back to Tsunade. Sakura hoped that after that, they could go home, but she was fairly certain she was hoping in vain.

“Um,” said Naruto again. One of his kittens yawned. “Well...so, it’s hot, right?”

Sai blinked. “Your powers of observation are without fault, Naruto-kun.”

Sakura rolled her eyes and launched into the story anyway – maybe it would keep her mind off the heat. “I think what Naruto-kun is trying to say, Sai, is that the very hot summer we’ve all been enduring as best we can has been particularly hard on his delicate sensibilities, and so yesterday, unable to take it any more, he decided to go for a swim in the Hokage Lake.” The man-made lake was a new feature of the village, built close to Tsunade’s home, and Iruka was in the process of organising plants to surround it with botanical gardens. Jiraiya had sourced a number of interesting fish and other lake creatures to fill it with, and it had become quite the tourist attraction.

“A swim?” Sai repeated. His kitten, bored with swiping at his belly button, bit him on the forearm. He gave it a pained smile. “I was unaware the lake allowed swimming.”

“It doesn’t.” Sakura hefted her kittens higher and one started licking the sweat off her neck. She angled away from its rough tongue. “Tsunade has repeatedly explained that it’s for viewing purposes only and that some of the things that live in it are dangerous and rare.”

“Well, I just thought she was keeping it as a private swimming pool.” Naruto moved his own kittens onto his shoulders and they balanced happily, digging their claws into the fabric of his jacket. “I wouldn’t put it past her, sly old baachan.”

Sakura caught a glimpse of a striped tail disappearing around a corner and increased her pace. “Who cares if she was? You could have gone to the river!”

Naruto sped up, Sai close behind. “Yeah, but everyone goes to the river. It’s too crowded!”

They turned into an alleyway, boxes and bags of rubbish piled up on all sides. Sakura wrinkled her nose and took a few tentative steps forward. “Anyway, Naruto jumped into the lake and was having a grand old time when one of the dangerous and rare creatures Shishou warned us about appeared.”

Sai’s kitten turned its attention to his fingers and started methodically slashing at his knuckles with its claws. His mouth turned down slightly but otherwise he didn’t react. “He is obviously unharmed, though.”

Sakura would have rolled her eyes again, but it was too hot. “Yes, Naruto’s fine. But the lake creature is rather worse for wear.”

“What did you do to it?” Sai asked Naruto, sounding genuinely interested. Even now, he so rarely seemed genuine so Sakura was taken aback.

Naruto crouched and scanned the random debris in the alley for any sight of the last kitten. “Well...I dunno if you can say that I specifically did something to it...”

“He rode it!” Sakura snapped, startling her kittens and causing their ears to flatten in alarm. “He was swimming in the lake and a giant koi appeared and he jumped on its back and rode it like a bucking bull!”

“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time,” mumbled Naruto. “It had whisker things that looked like reins, I guess, and there wasn’t anything else to do.”

“So you just—“

Sai leapt forward in a dark blur, cutting between Sakura and Naruto and splintering an empty crate in his haste. A moment later he straightened, a dazed-looking kitten held in his other hand. His original kitten gave it a disapproving look. “Is this the last one?”

“Yes, great.”

Sakura turned and led them out of the alleyway, pausing to determine the best route back to the Hokage Tower. Behind her, she heard Sai ask Naruto, “So...why exactly is Hokage-sama angry? Because you rode the koi?”

“Well, no,” admitted Naruto. Sakura couldn’t see him, but he sounded shifty. As well he should! “You see, I kind of lost control and crashed the koi.”

“You crashed the koi,” Sai repeated. His voice was blank, with a hint of disbelief. Sakura had had the same reaction.

“Yeah. And when it crashed...I kind of crashed it into her house.”

Sai was silent for a long moment, and his first kitten hissed. “Ah,” he said eventually.

They made their way back to the Tower in silence, broken only once by Naruto.

“Who has giant koi anyway?!”



Okay, I promise that's it for tonight. Next up, I have some Avatar fic to get out of my system, and then more Naruto, I guess. Sorry again! ;______________;