A New Way of Ninja

9: Sleeping at Last

Temari returned some hours later to find everyone still pretty lethargic.

Even she was too bushed to give them much crap over it.

"How are they?" Momo asked, rubbing her face.

"They're all going to be fine," Temari said. "Kiba wasn't that banged up by comparison to the others."

She smirked. "Of course, Shikamaru was practically bawling in relief. Can you believe it?"

"I'm sure I would be," Momo said. "They are his friends.... Whenever my classmates end up in the hospital, I worry." She put a hand to her chest. "But we do go up against villains all the time. We're bound to get injured."

"Remember that time you got hit in the head by a nomu?" Shoto sat up and frowned. "Dabi was part of that attack.... I still think of that sometimes."

"That wasn't his fault, though," Momo said.

"I don't understand how your own brother was attacking you." Temari said that with zero irony. "And yet now you're on the same team."

Shoto looked at her. "I don't understand it well myself. But in some ways, that Dabi no longer seems quite real...though he likes to talk that way still, and he's a jerk...but still, he's not the bloodthirsty killer he was."

"I pitied him a little when I heard the story," Momo said. "Though it's not an excuse."

"I can't picture you fighting at all," Temari said to Momo.

"Yaoyerozu is a good fighter," Shoto said. "You haven't seen her try yet."

"She didn't do much against the sand." Temari was skeptical.

"That's not what my quirk is suited to," Momo said.

"So let me get this straight: you just get one power," Temari said, "no other learned attacks, nothing."

"We can learn to use weapons to boost our chances," Momo said. "But you only have one quirk...unless you're a nomu...a creation of evil."

"Or All For One," Shoto said. "We still don't know much about who he is, but he had multiple quirks."

"Doesn't Midoriya also?" Momo said. "In a way."

"I never know what's going on with him," Shoto said. "He and All Might talk a lot. Maybe All Might knows. Maybe it's some kind of rare condition.... I almost have two quirks."

"But most of us only have one." Momo shrugged.

"How dull," Temari said.

"Oh, I don't know." Shine walked in, hair in a towel. "Momo has enough creativity to make her quirk challenging enough on its own. Brute force isn't everything, Temari.... So all's well?"

"Other than the mission failed, sure," Temari said. "But that's not our business.... I suppose we'll be on our way tomorrow."

She sat down. "Uchiha getting away will mean trouble for us too, in the long run, if Orochimaru returns. But, there's nothing we can do about it.... And now, to the point.... What do we do about you?"

"Don't do anything with us," Shoto said. "It's not your call."

"Lady Tsunade has made you our responsibility," Temari said. "Anything you do wrong reflects poorly on us. You had better know how to act around here."

"As long as we don't start any fights, what is there really we could do wrong?" Shine asked.

"Don't make trouble, and we shouldn't be here long enough to worry about it," Temari said. "Just don't go around telling people you can fight the Shukaku.... If they knew you had power like that, I couldn't answer for your lives or freedom here...or they might ask you to kill it."