The Way Into Mist Village (Naruto)

18: With a Little Help

[OP: "I Have Made Mistakes"--The Oh Hellos (If you look up each of these songs and their meaning, you'll see that they fit the chapters I'm using them for.)]

Getting back to the house, the students saw Sasuke standing outside the front looking up at the roof.

"He's outside?" Dabi said in mock surprise. "Shocker."

"The light might burn his eyes," Camie remarked. "What's he doing?"

Naruto was the one who had the nerve to actually ask him.

"Whatcha doing, Sasuke?" he asked.

Sasuke gave him a cold look, but, seeming to recall that he was supposed to be at peace with Naruto, he replied flatly. "I'm trying to solve a riddle."

"Outside?" Naruto said.

Sasuke said nothing.

"Does this riddle have anything to do with Shine?" Wally asked, pausing.

Sasuke didn't reply.

"I'm betting that's a yes. I'm gonna go ask her." Wally dashed inside.

"How can he move so fast after all that work?" Karin panted.

"He's not human, I swear," Suigetsu whined.

"It's his Speed Force--it's never off," Shoto said.

"Perhaps we can help?" Momo offered Sasuke politely. "What kind of riddle was it?"

Sasuke gave her a frosty look--but then remembered that she was a long time student...and Shine had said to wait till they got there to do it anyway... Maybe they had heard this before.

Cautiously, he said, "Likstar-san said to get onto the roof without using jutsu, chakra, or hands and feet."

"Not using jutsu?" Sakura repeated. "Or Chakra? That's not possible."

"Or at least using your hands and feet," Jugo remarked. "You have to hold on with something."

"Did she mean to use a ladder?" Sai asked.

Momo looked at the roof, then looked at Sasuke. "Did she say anything else at all?"

"Nothing important," Sasuke said.

"Are you sure? Because with Shine, the details are usually where she hides the answer to her questions," Momo said.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "She said to wait till you got back so you could see...to humiliate me, I suspect."

"Oh, so he does know she does that," Dabi remarked to Bakugo.

Bakugo sniffed. "Shine doesn't humiliate him--he does it himself, and she just exposes it."

"Momo, we don't need to help him," Shoto said frostily to her, looking past Sasuke. "He should figure it out himself, if it's some kind of task she gave him. Probably a test. It would be wrong to help him."

"Even a little bit?" Momo said.

"Technically, he can't use his hands--he only has one," Camie remarked to Bakugo, who shook his head. 

Sasuke clenched his one hand.

Sakura frowned. "Likstar-san must know it's impossible. She's just mocking him. And you shouldn't encourage her to do it." Looking at Shoto.

"If it's not real, then she probably just wanted to get him out of her hair for a while," Shoto said thinly. "And I don't blame her."

"Are you saying it was a trick the whole time?" Saskue said angrily.