Satsuki had been going through her morning routine, that is wake up, take care of her hygiene, train for an hour, take a bath and then spend the rest of her time reviewing the material they'd gone over in the academy, mastering it to perfection. Today, she had foregone training and reviewing, considering the circumstances. Halfway through her bath, as she soaked herself in the warm water, it hit her like a jet powered truck.
Or like someone pounding on her door.
"Oi, Satchan!" Yelled someone, as she heard through her panic-enhanced senses the jingle of the owner of the voice fumbling with keys. "It's about time, are you ready?" There was the sound of a lock being unlocked, and of a door being pushed. "Huh… she's not here?"
She wanted to get up and yell, she wanted to curse the idiot for entering her house without permission, she wanted to get out of the bath tub and maul her with it. But there was a very specific problem with doing so. Namely, it'd require getting up to do so naked or covered with a towel. Not to mention, she didn't seem to be aware of her presence.
And for the poor, sexually harassed Satsuki, that was a blessing in and of itself. Her nerves could only take so much without her daily me-time spent in the bath, getting rid of the accumulated grime, aches, nerves and unforgiving rage.
Therefore, Satsuki decided to just lay back, close her eyes and hope for the best. There was absolutely no need to call attention to herself and if she could just stop making noise entirely, perhaps she'd go for the morning without having to deal with the most obnoxious person in her life.
She ruthlessly squashed the small voice in the back of her head that told her to bring attention to herself. She did not, in any shape or form, enjoy the blonde's teasing. No matter what anybody said, she did not swing that way. How would she restore the Uchiha clan to glory if she did? There was simply no choice in the matter, and she was okay with that.
Or so she told herself, anyway.
"Oh, well, I guess she must have already left." Continued the pervert's voice. She seemed… oddly dejected, as if she was but a baby who had her favorite toy taken away. Satsuki resisted the need to snort at the thought. Yeah, Naruko behaved not unlike a spoiled child at times. Then again, just about everybody gave her whatever she wanted whenever she wanted it. Satsuki would be angry about that…
…If it hadn't actually worked on her at times.
She was just too darned adorable when she wanted to be, and that pout felt like someone ripped her heart out and put it through a meat grinder every time she saw it. It was simply not fair to be that cute, and it sometimes pissed Satsuki off, since it allowed her to get away with pretty much anything so long as she looked sad about it later on.
She had gotten away with being tardy to class, with being terrible at pretty much everything, with pranking the teachers, with pranking the students, with pranking the genin teams hired to clean the academy… Sure, some of those were utterly hilarious to see, and that time when she'd somehow managed to glue every desk and chair to the ceiling had even made the usually anally-retentive Iruka laugh… but she had still gotten away with only slaps on the wrist, if even that.
Letting out a long and drawn out sigh, Satsuki grabbed a book resting in a cupboard next to her bathtub and opened the table of contents. She visually scanned the page until she found what she was looking for. Her chakra control was less than perfect, and it showed in her difficulty performing the Uchiha's staple Grand Fireball. Oh, yeah, she shouldn't be able to use it at all as a recently graduated genin.
The thought of it was laughable. She'd trained her ass off to have enough chakra to use it more than once a day. The thought of any jutsu, other than bloodline jutsu, being beyond her reach was laughable. Even if she couldn't due to chakra constraints, all she'd need to do is train harder to learn it.
She let herself sink a bit further unto the warm and calming soapy water, while concentrating on the chakra theory she was reading about. Usually, she wouldn't bother with something like this, instead going for the more practical parts. She'd have brought a few pieces of paper with her to do the exercises while she relaxed.
Today, however, she needed to preserve her energy, since she wouldn't eat breakfast and thus would require all the energy her sleep brought to her. That's why she'd chosen to avoid training, and why she'd neglected practicing chakra control that morning.
She wouldn't get the chakra back through breakfast and the control boost would be negligible at best, so it'd only be a net loss for the test that was about to take part.
Oh, well, at least she still had half an hour of relaxation left before the blonde bundle of energy, sunshine and cuteness would begin bothering her again. She tossed her book back into the cupboard and let out a contented sigh, closing her eyes and just letting her every muscle relax.
"Hey, Satchan, do you want me to wash your back?"
A moan of approval sounded through the bathroom as Satsuki leant forward and allowed enough space behind herself on the bathtub for another to slip in. The displacement of the water was the first sound that came to her ears, but she was too gone into her happy place to notice as she felt a pair of soft, soapy hands running through her back.
Another moan of approval left Satsuki's throat, as she leant forward a bit more to allow her massager more space to work with on her back and enjoy the fruits of her movements even further. The hands left her back for a few seconds, causing Satsuki to whimper at the loss. Then the hands returned, running from the base of her spine all the way up to her neck, before they began massaging her scalp.
Yet another moan escaped the bathing girl as the sensation ran through her body, her silky black locks parting way to give the hands access to her scalp. The one cleaning her hair began to hum a merry tune which Satsuki found rather soothing and calming as she slipped further into the bliss of full relaxation.
"Hm… your skin is so soft…" Satsuki didn't bother replying to the compliment, distracted by the jolt running through her body as the hands moved to her shoulders and upper back, massaging them to remove the kinks brought in from excessive training. Pressure was applied, and the Uchiha heiress winced when it became a bit too tough to bear, but it made the otherwise constant pains subside when the pressure relented.
The hands kneading her back made her feel like new after a while, and she couldn't help but whimper when they were once again removed from her body. "Hey, Satchan… can you wash my back too?"
"Sure…" Mumbled the Uchiha lost in her bliss. She turned around and looked at the damp, wavy locks that cascaded down her friend's back. Now that they were damp and actually being pulled down by their own weight, their length was perhaps even more impressive than her own hair. Indeed, if she had to guess, she'd put them at a little more than waist length. Not entirely conducive to ninja work, but there were ways to counter that.
She knew so because there were many, many shinobi with long hair and she herself liked to keep her hair at least below her shoulders. Maybe it was just a misguided attempt to look like her mother.
Regardless, she parted the veritable sea of hair to get to the tanned skin of her target with one hand while looking for the bar of soap with the other. Finding it, she began to go through the act of removing the previous day's grime from the warm and wet body before her. It didn't take her long, as she didn't dwell upon the act more than she should.
"I think I missed a few spots, can you turn around?"
With a dumb nod and a rather mellow smile, Satsuki did as asked and then felt a pair of arms snake around her chest until they met each other and became intertwined. Something warm and soft pressed against her back and began to move up and down. A moan escaped Satsuki, a throaty sound brought from her rather pleasurable experience.
Whatever Naruko was doing felt rather good on her back and—
Wait a minute. "Naruko what the hell are you doing?" Asked Satsuki, as the haze from her relaxation wore off. The movements behind her back stopped at once.
"I'm washing your back, silly. Since I couldn't be sure with my hands, I thought I should use my whole body!" Explained a rather cheerful sounding voice.
"Um… That makes sense… I guess…" The Uchiha stated, rubbing her chin. Then she shook her head violently and groaned at her own stupidity for accepting that explanation. "That's not what I meant." While she might have been somewhat calm sounding, it was clear that her composure was at the border of breaking. "What are you doing in my bathroom? What are you doing in my bathtub while I am using it?"
"Oh, that. Well, I came here to pick you up so we could go to the training ground together, but since you weren't in your living room, I thought you might be here. And when I saw you, you looked so relaxed that I didn't want to interrupt your bath. Since I needed one myself, I thought that we could take a bath together to save time!" The rather lengthy explanation was given in the same obliviously cheerful and cheerfully oblivious tone that she delivered pretty much every sentence with.
Satsuki's palm met her face. "Let's… let's just get this over with…" She said. She was still a little in her happy place, and she wouldn't let Naruko being Naruko get in the way of it. She had to be ready and concentrated today, so it wasn't even a choice.
"Yay! Then, do I get to wash Satchan's front too?" Asked Naruko, a wide smile on her face.
Satsuki looked at Naruko as if she'd sprouted a second head.
Naruko was skipping on her way, swinging a basket around as she went on her way. While she did so, she was humming a merry tune to herself. Trailing behind her, at a more sedate and controlled pace, were her teammates, Uchiha Satsuki and Haruno Sakura, the latter of which seemed to be seething and the former pointedly staring at the ground.
"Naruko, could you stop doing that?" Asked Sakura, looking at the twirling blonde with an abominable expression, trying her hardest to literally glare daggers at her. She had to content herself with just metaphorically glaring daggers at the object of her current rage.
"Doing what, Sakura-chan?" Asked Naruko, turning around and leaning forward, clasping her hands behind her back, using both to hold the basket in place.
"Jumping around. Your skirt is so short that every time you jump your panties show!" Explained the pinkette, crossing her arms and growling out her words.
Naruko unclasped her hands and brought her left index finger to her lower lip, falling into thought. "But I like moving around like this!" she said, pouting at Sakura.
Sakura groaned at the full frontal cuteness assault. "If you're going to do that, then you need to stop wearing a skirt. It's not a good idea to wear a skirt without a pair of shorts unless you want to show your underwear to everyone." The pinkette explained.
"But it's comfortable…" Naruko said, her pout intensified.
"It's distracting, Naruko." Ground out Satsuki, still glaring at the ground.
Her gaze travelled to where Naruko's feet lay. The sandals that covered her feet did nothing to hide her long black and orange striped thigh high socks. Or maybe they were stockings? She didn't want to know. She forced her gaze away from the small strip of skin shown between Naruko's rather short skirt and the stockings, travelling up. Her only ninja-task worthy piece of clothing she wore was the black and orange jacket she wore. Indeed, her choice of dress was quite distracting for her teammates. "I know!" she said, a cheerful smile stretching her whiskered cheeks and her eyes closed, giving her the appearance of a fox kit.
Both Satsuki and Sakura groaned but said nothing about it.
"Why do you have a picnic basket with you?" Asked Sakura, finally managing to pull the question that had been on her mind since the two had picked her up. First, she looked at Satsuki, who merely shrugged as she hadn't even asked, then she looked directly at the blonde, who had been about to begin skipping down the path to training ground three once again. "Sensei told us not to eat breakfast." She said.
Naruko blushed and rubbed the back of her neck with her free hand. "I thought that sensei might be late today too, so I thought about it and decided we could have our breakfast as a picnic this morning!" She said, smiling at both of her teammates in a sheepish manner, which coupled with her blush out of embarrassment had them both thinking that she'd actually just made that up and she'd actually forgotten that their sensei had told them not to eat breakfast.
"How do you know that the training ground will even be conducive to having a picnic?" Asked Sakura, raising one eyebrow and managing to sound calm despite her irritation. "Now you'll have to carry that the whole day. And even if Sensei did come in late, there's still the fact that this could be a heavy training session and we would end up vomiting our breakfasts like he said." Talking about vomit was not how she envisioned her kunoichi days, but you take what you can. "You really should think these things through."
Naruko merely giggled as if that would somehow fix the problem.
Satsuki sighed and shook her head. "She may be right. If Sensei is as late as he was yesterday, then we'd have enough time for the food to settle in our stomachs before he gets there. We wouldn't be at risk of losing our breakfast then." She said, looking ahead, ignoring the eyes of everyone in the kunoichi trio. She knew they were an odd sight, as the classic formation for genin teams was two males and a female, but their class had been special, having more than the norm of females.
"If you think so…" Sakura said, biting her lower lip and keeping her remarks back.
It did not take long for the potential Team 7 to arrive at their teacher's chosen destination. The training ground he'd chosen for them was a wide open space with rather short grass and forest removing it from clear view by the village proper. It was not gigantic, but it was still one of the bigger training grounds in Konoha, and it made all three of them worry about what kind of test their sensei would put them through.
Naruko smirked and then opened her basket, pulling out a blanket that she'd used not too long ago. It was still clean enough, despite a few spots here and there, marks of its not inconsiderable age. With a flourish, she spread it on the grass, putting the basket in a corner and beginning to take out wrapped packages from within it.
Each and every one of them was quickly unwrapped to reveal many different kinds of sandwiches within them. "I didn't know what Sakura-chan liked, so I made a whole bunch of everything!" She explained, a wide smile on her face as she gestured to the incredible amount of food she'd spread on the blanket. "Please, dig in!"
Satsuki blinked, then sat in one of the two free corners. Naruko gestured to one of the plastic plates she'd set up with no less than twelve of the triangular treats.
"All of those have tomatoes in them, Satchan, I would've made more, but the youngest ones weren't ripe so I had to work with what I had." Explained the blonde. "Though I'm not sure which combinations you would like and which you wouldn't so…"
Satsuki shook her head. Naruko might not have been present, but ninja were taught to eliminate, or at least minimize, the list of the food that they didn't like. There was always the chance you'd have to eat things you usually wouldn't during missions, after all, or you could be asked to impersonate someone whose favorite food might be one you dislike.
It was just paranoia to most, but it was still useful at times to be capable of eating food regardless of its taste. A complicated art, to be sure, but a rewarding one. "It's weird that there's no instant ramen…" Satsuki muttered, having once been witness to the veritable mountains of empty ramen cups that Naruko threw out at a time. If she had to guess, she'd say that the blonde was keeping the industry alive on her lonesome.
"I wanted to bring some ramen cups, but since I no longer get the orphan's stipend, my ramen budget is a bit tight." Admitted Naruko, digging onto a random sandwich she picked up. "Eat up, Sakura-chan! You need to eat a lot so you will grow up nice and big!" the whiskered girl said, her eyes trailing down Sakura's rather androgynous body. Indeed, being twelve, she had yet to begin undergoing puberty and as such, could be confused with a boy except for her long hair.
And so, Team Seven spent their early morning amicably eating their picnic breakfast, chatting about inconsequential things that almost invariably ended up being sidetracked by a perverted comment coming from the blonde.
"Anyway, what happened this morning? You two came together…"
"Well, it's a long story, but I guess we have time." Naruko said, shrugging. "It all began when I went to pick up Satchan…" And such a very long tale that explained in thorough detail each and every one of the actions Naruko had performed, up to and including the bath she'd taken, was told to an increasingly redder Sakura.
Not to be left behind, Satsuki sported a luminescent blush, being reduced to dumb nodding whenever Sakura asked for confirmation.
Sakura groaned. "You're BOTH perverts…" She muttered.
"Aw, Sakura-chan is jealous! Next time, we should all take a bath together! I have a large enough furo in my apartment we can use! No, wait, I've got a better idea! We should go to the hot springs!"
Against her better judgment, Sakura shrugged. "Sure, why not?" she said.