Ripples

Chapter 22

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"You're a regular little ray of sunshine, aren't you?" Suigetsu grumbled.

Generally speaking, he was fond of Sakura...but it was hard to feel particularly kindly inclined towards someone who was so cheerful while he was in chains.

"I'm just really excited about going home," Sakura chirped.

"As we've heard," Karin snapped. "Don't you ever shut up?"

"Didn't you hear her?" Suigetsu sniped. "She's excited to go home and see her friends. Or maybe you don't know what's that like – after all, I doubt anyone was ever excited to see you."

Sakura shook her head as Karin and Suigetsu degenerated into argument, only the chains around their wrists preventing it from turning physical.

"You know, those two kind of remind me of you guys," she remarked to Naruto and Sasuke.

Sasuke scowled, apparently deeply offended, and Naruto looked in much the same frame of mind.

"We're not like them!" the blonde yelped. "We're not!"

"You're a bit like them," Sakura insisted. "Bicker, outright argue, fight, get along for a little while, then go back to bickering...just like you guys."

"We're not like that!" Naruto repeated. "Back me up here, bastard!"

"But you are like that," Sakura grinned, staying her course more out of teasing than any real determination. "It's a cycle – you guys fight, then get along, then fight, then get along..."

The medic's grin broadened as Naruto again fervently denied it, while Sasuke seemed content to pretend she hadn't said anything. She couldn't resist ribbing the blonde occasionally, but she had noticed the impulse to let fly with cutting, sarcastic comments had dwindled significantly. Probably because now that her collar was gone and she was free and traveling back to Konoha with her friends, her constant low level anger and frustration had disappeared.

She was about to make another teasing comment to Naruto, when something suddenly struck her as off. Ninjas were very attuned to their surroundings, and an instinctive prickling at the back of her neck was telling her that something was wrong.

A glance around her told her the others seemed to be feeling the same. People around her were glancing over their shoulders, scanning the trees around them...even Suigetsu and Karin had ceased arguing.

It was Suigetsu who noticed the way Juugo had become ominously still, the way rippling black marks were radiating across his body. "Uhh...guys?"

But he got no further than that. With a roar like a wounded lion, the large blonde lunged for Hinata, who had been walking beside him. His hand closed over her throat, his strength yanking her straight off the ground to dangle from his chokehold.

"Juugo!" Sakura shrieked.

Hinata struck at the arm that was constricting her throat instinctively, trying to force him to release her. But her chakra-infused strikes seemed to make no impression on the blonde's grey, suddenly craggy flesh, and Juugo pulled back his other arm to the limits of the shackles with a dark laugh, his fingers sprouting long, wicked talons that could carve into Hinata's flesh like kunai...