Dosu's Great Escape

Chapter Eight: Reactions

Ino Yamanaka was taking a walk.

The Flower Shop had been closed for the past few days. Renovations were being done to the front, so Ino wasn't needed. It had been a relief at first; not having to work was fun. But unfortunately, the novelty had worn off after the first few days.

Most of her friends from earlier were civilians. She didn't have all that much to talk about with them anymore. And Sakura, the little traitor, wasn't taking her calls anymore. Oh, there would be reckoning with her. But not today.

Not today.

And then she heard crying. Ino looked up and saw Hinata sobbing by a fountain. The girl was always quiet and withdrawn in class. Though Ino had caught her glances at Naruto now and again. Ino had largely dismissed her as unthreatening. If she wasn't after Sasuke, they had no quarrel.

Now she was sobbing. What had Naruto done this time?

Actually, that wasn't fair. Naruto was dumb as a box of hammers, annoying, untalented, and totally lacked social cues. But he wasn't the sort of make a girl cry. Not on purpose anyway.

Ino walked toward Hinata somewhat reluctantly. The last time she'd done this she'd gotten stabbed in the back by her best friend. She kneeled down. "Hey, Hinata, are you alright?"

Hinata wiped the tears from her eyes with one fur jacket. "N-no I'm not."

"What's wrong, then?" asked Ino. She felt responsible for something, or so Ino judged by her movements. This was about guilt as well as grief.

"It's me who's wrong," said Hinata. "I kept pretending as though I cared. Like I was the one person who ever believed in him, but I've done nothing..."

So it had been Naruto. Well, there was no sense talking about this in the sun. Ino put a hand on her shoulder. "Slow down Hinata. Look, how about you come with me and get some ice cream. Then when you're in a bit of a better state, you can tell me."

Hinata looked even more guilty. "I... I don't want to impose."

"It's fine, really," said Ino. "Now come on, let's get out of the sun." She smiled and offered Hinata a hand.

Hinata took it.

Later she told her everything. And Ino made a plan.

Dosu remained silent for a moment after hearing what Kin had learned. For a moment, he contemplated it. Then he looked up. "Are you certain of this?"

"Completely," said Kin. "I saw the seal on his body."

Dosu paused. "...This changes things completely."

"What? How?" asked Kin.

"There is no possible way that the Leaf Village could be his careless," said Dosu. "I might have accepted them, putting us near a known prankster. But they'd never deliberately let us compromise the Nine-Tailed Fox.

"So what do you think this is about?" asked Zaku.

"It's obvious that Naruto was meant as a decoy," said Dosu. "They expect us to use him in any plan we might make to engineer our escape."

"I'm pretty sure you're overthinking this, Dosu," said Kin.

"Which is more likely to you?" asked Dosu. "That the Leaf Village would deliberately leave a trap for us? Or that the Leaf Village would leave us next door to the bearer of the Nine-Tailed Fox?"

"You don't want to hear the answer to that," said Kin. Anyway, she was still going to take Naruto with her when she left. It would be easy.

And then there was an explosion.