Konoha's Maelstrom

11

AN: So, you had one job animators! One damn job! Firstly, Sasuke is bloodier in the manga. Secondly, Naruto's hand is literally on Sasuke's cheek, not his shoulder. Finally, Sasuke's eyes are barely open, unlike in the anime.

Meiko awoke to silence. Deafening silence.

She groaned, rising slowly, and found herself in her futon.

A quick scan of her surroundings told her she was in the room she had been staying for the duration of their stay at Tazuna's house.

The sunlight streaming through her window wasn't that strong yet, nor that visible, so Meiko estimated it to be around 7 in the morning.

She blinked multiple times, trying to wake up.

She was tired.

"What happened last night?" she thought aloud, stretching as she stood.

And then it came rushing back.

She'd left the house angrily and had exhausted herself, using a lot of her chakra on creating shadow clones and practising the Water Style: Water Beast jutsu (she had been debating trying to learn the water dragon jutsu, but she'd thought better of it considering that jutsu had over 40 hand seals—and yes, she did remember the jutsu from Kakashi and Zabuza's first fight), so she'd settled on the water beast jutsu. She'd used so much chakra. Thankfully, she managed to be able to do the water beast jutsu, even if it was with all four hand seals.

Meiko sighed, mentally berating herself for her carelessness.

She sensed her reserves and found them only a fifth full. Meiko shook her head, disappointed with herself.

There was only one way to get full reserves in a few seconds.

Meiko looked around the room. Her sealing scrolls were with her clothes, folded neatly in the corner. Meiko was actually wearing some shorts and a tank top, which she was glad she managed to change into last night after entering the house in her tired state.

Meiko's folded clothes smelt horrible and were dirty, very dirty.

She unrolled one of her scrolls, the one containing a spare set of clothes, and pushed some chakra into the seal. Out popped her spare set, though it was slightly different from her normal set because who wore the same clothes for an entire week in a row?

She changed quickly. A mesh shirt with a dark blue, high-necked, sleeveless crop top with the Uzumaki symbol on the back. Meiko pulled on her shorts—dark blue shorts with a thick waistband. Finally, she pulled on her fingerless gloves, the familiar feeling of the soft, but durable, material comforting. Her double-belt was wrapped around her waist tightly, it's usual place. She wrapped bandages around her right thigh, and tied the thigh pouch on (the pouch was tied around her upper thigh and it didn't block the storage seal she had on her clothes for her katana, that was higher up, around her hip height). Finally, Meiko pulled on her dark blue boots.

In her dirty clothes, Meiko unsealed her katana and re-sealed it into her newer pair of shorts. She checked her pouch of kunai and shuriken—the kunai were in the pouch on the back of her belt and the shuriken were on her thigh pouch—as well as her several other pouches. Everything was in place and fine.

And that brought Meiko to why she was checking the cylinder full of black pills.

It had a seal on the bottom, and when triggered by Meiko's chakra, it would give her a black pill. The black pills were basically immediate chakra refills, and she would badly need them considering her reserves were only at a fifth.

Meiko swallowed the pill quickly, ignoring the disgusting taste it left.

She wasn't too worried about the Bridge considering that Kakashi and Sasuke were there to protect Tazuna. However, Meiko also knew she should get there fast because, while Kakashi had graciously allowed her to sleep in, she would probably be needed.