The Akira Files

Their Bitter Rivalry; Akira's Guilt

Akira’s POV

Well, the team was off to visit Sasuke in the hospital today and here I was giving each of these hounds a bath. It wasn’t fair. It took me three hours to bathe them and that was after running after them, getting soaked to the bone, having to bath the largest one twice, and all while Kakashi laughed on the back steps. I don’t think I had ever been so tired in my life, no wait that’s a lie, I was this tired once before after running for three bloody long days.

I took a quick shower to rid myself of the wet dog smell before heading to the hospital. It was a lengthy walk to the hospital so I decided to train my chakra a bit more by climbing onto the roofs and using the correct amount to get myself to the next one no matter the distance. It didn’t take long until I was at the hospital.

Let’s just say I was not happy with what I saw. The majority of team 7 was gathered on the roof, Sakura was standing nervously off to the side as Naruto and Sasuke fought to kill. It wasn’t anything like their normal fights, I thought as I appeared beside Sakura.

“So, what happened?” I asked as nonchalantly as I could.

She jolted, her eyes prying away from the scene if only for a moment. “When did you get here?” Her voice cracking.

“Just got here. So, what brought this on?”

“I-I’m not sure, I was just cutting Sasuke an apple when he got angry demanding a fight with Naruto. I don’t know what to do. We have to stop them.”

“Or get Kakashi.” I said jumping onto the fence surrounding the roof, “I’ll be back. Don’t do anything reckless and if they do…” I sighed in exasperation trying not to think worst case scenario. “If they do something stupid throw a rock at them or something.”

Now where is Kakashi? I jumped from roof to roof, trying to sense his chakra. It wasn’t difficult to find him once I knew where to look.

“Dad, stop looking for those books and get to the hospital.” I yelled storming into the book store and attempting to drag him out.

He barely glanced away from his book, “I thought everyone was visiting Sasuke. Why should I intervene between team bonding?” He said sarcastically.

“Cause the team bonding has turned into a team massacre.”

That caught his attention. “Wait, what?”

I pushed him towards the door as his resistence began to break, “Sasuke and Naruto are trying to kill each other. They’re on the roof, we gotta get back before they all kill each other. Well Sakura would be more like an altruistic suicide. Knowing her she’ll get right in the middle. But nevermind that, we just need to- and he’s gone. Man I really need to learn that trick.”

I jumped back the way I came, pumping chakra into my muscles to increase my speed. I got there just in time to see Kakashi save Sakura from certain death all while flinging the two boys into adjacent water towers. Sasuke’s left a fairly decent sized hole in the front of his whereas Naruto was having difficulties getting his hand back from the tower after leaving a much smaller hole. At least that’s what it appeared to be, but from the back of the water tower you could tell that Naruto’s had way more power.

I jumped down beside the roof door, Kakashi tried to scold Sasuke but eventually he just ran off. Jiraiya talked to Kakashi for a moment, they seemed to be disappointed in each other. Sakura continued to cry and I stood there clueless as to what to do. When I cried in the past, I was told to suck it up or a punishment would happen. Then I came here and the methods to deal with tears changed, so I took a few hesitant steps towards her. I tried to say something but thought better of it, I just wrapped my arms around her shoulders like Kakashi would with me. I didn’t expect her to latch onto me as though I were her only hope but with only one balance recovering step back, I was giving her a proper hug.