Hi there! This is my first story, but I don't have a title yet...I'm sure I'll come up with one. Anyway, I guess I should put that I don't own any of the characters except for Belle Tikishi here. Yep, I randomly came up with the last name. Be glad it's not Tikihiti. I don't even know if that sounds Japanese...

I had trouble starting the story too; I didn't have the hang of the story yet I guess.

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I had been walking for a very, very long time. The forest around me was beautiful—birds sang out as they glided from tree to tree, lizards scrambled through the tall stems of the various shrubs, and one time I even thought I spotted a leopard's coat through the foliage.

That was just a snake, I thought, a very large snake with scales that look furry. No claws…. It's going the other way anyway.

Yes, I was trying to keep from being paranoid. You see, I was lost in a forest, and a tropical one at that. Now, I had never been good at reading maps, but when I decided that maybe Suna village would be a good place to find another job, I thought it would be easy to find. I figured that it was surrounded by desert and spot-able, plus add in my handy-dandy map, and it would be a piece of cake to get from point A to B. Signs would be easy to find, and not obscured behind large trees/stones/etc. No (sane) hooligans would be running around the desert, pulling said signs out of the sand, and repositioning them to point in different directions.

And yes, I have followed misleading signs, obviously. I have no sense of direction, even when holding a map, so I rely on visual checkpoints to tell me I'm heading in the right direction. And let me tell you—a forest when I was supposedly walking through a desert was a bad sign. A really bad sign.

But I continued on anyways. Just because I see trees around me when I should be seeing endless sand dunes does not mean I'm going the wrong way. This must be one of those cheap maps…

Well, I DID find it in a dumpster…

I'm stubborn like that.

And so I dragged myself on, gradually getting more upset at the cartographer who wrote the map as I tuned out my surroundings.

SPLASH!!!

"OWWWW, HOT!!!!" I jumped out of the hot spring as fast as I could and rediscovered the real world.

Great, now my clothes are gonna need to dry. I guess I'd better set up camp here…it shouldn't be so bad. I might be lost, but I still can relax with the help of this oasis here. I guess life can be good sometimes…

I slipped into the springs with a bit more grace than I did before, and sighed both out of exhaustion and frustration. My life is always so random, but I guess it's a good thing…

"COME ON! I MEAN, HOW LONG COULD IT TAKE TO GET THERE!!!!"

Naruto screamed out for the 47th time. And shortly after a pale-skinned fist dropped on his head.

"COULD YOU CAN IT?! MY HEAD HAS OFFICIALLY BEEN SPLIT INTO FOURTHS, BAKA!!!" Sakura retorted, with violence just as usual.

"Why do you both fight so much? You're friends. I don't understand." Sai muttered while flipping through his book on human behavior.

Meanwhile, another was also flipping through his pages as normal. The copycat nin had decided a long time ago to not get involved.

"Oww, Sakura-chan, that hurt. I just can't wait to start this mission, I've never been a detective before…HEY! Trees aren't supposed to be in the desert, right?"

All three others turned their heads, and Kakashi decided to finally say something.

"Well, it seems to me that this would be a good place to set up camp, because I doubt any mirages are going to get as real as this."

"All RIGHT!!!!!" Naruto gleamed, "Hey, do you see that fog in there, between those palm trees on the right? What do you think it is?"

"Maybe it's haunted…" added Sai, and Naruto just about keeled over.

The four ninja were very weary of the little tent they found. Inside there was just one set of clothes, a box of…. very unappetizing stale crackers, and some other personal things like a brush, toothpaste, etc. It would have seemed they found a fellow traveler, if not for the sword they discovered wrapped up in an orange scarf.

"It could be a trap," Sakura observed, "But maybe we can hide out in the forest and surprise her when she comes back."

"That is a good plan, Saku—"

"How do you know it's a girl?!" Naruto butted in on Kakashi's comment.

Sakura was about to ignore him, when the three heard a loud snap and immediately froze.

Sai was holding up a plain, black bra and playing with the straps.

"Are these really that comfortable?" Sai was about to try it on over his clothes, but Sakura had landed a sucker punch in a split second. Naruto was about to keel over, but this time from stifling laughter. Kakashi face palmed.

"Okay, so now that that's cleared up, let's head for the trees. And put everything back EXACTLY where you found it. Got it?" The sensei commanded, and immediately everything was set back to normal, and the ninjas crept into their stealthy positions.

The air quickly dropped in temperature as I headed back from my bath. I didn't have far to walk to reach my campsite, so I didn't get that cold even though I was only in a towel. And the annoying was that there were so many twigs on the ground that I sounded like a horse galloping on metal. It was loud. I wondered what must have happened in the branches above me, but I figured it was an animal, not 4 ninjas waiting to ambush me.

Faster than I could blink, one person had a hold on me, with an arm around my neck, and something unmistakably sharp against my back. He was standing behind me, when he questioned sort of menacingly,

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?" He seemed to put more pressure on my neck as he waited for an answer. I heard 3 more almost faint sounds, and three others appeared after jumping down from the canopy.

"I, I…. I'm just looking for the closest village. I, I got los..t on my way to Su….Sun.a. I—"

"What. is. your. name." He really didn't seem to believe me, guessing from his tone of voice.

"Belle Tikishi." I waited. It felt like hours, but it must have only been about a one minute long stretch of silence.

"Why is there a sword in your tent?" A girl voice on my left asked me.

"I found it…it was an old abandoned building…in Iwaran, a tiny town that is more like a refuge camp. I…I didn't mean to steal it, but nobody had lived there in ages and people are desperate when they are poor….I needed it to protect myself…if you want it you can take it…I swear just please—"

I started to blush madly when I realized my towel had slipped a bit. I was never good in situations when it came to something like romance, and the mere thought of my own bare skin scared me. I had no self-confidence. I went to grab the slowly sliding towel when the man behind me quickly dropped whatever weapon he was holding and locked my arms at my side.

"No quick movements. We still have more questions."

"No, I, you don't understand." I mumbled and looked down. The towel hadn't even moved more than a few millimeters, but it still got me worked up.

"Are you a ninja, or just a swordsman?" He had turned to the pink haired kunoichi. "Actually, Sakura, is there a way you can use your medical ninjutsu to see if her chakra network has been used recently?" She came forward, extended her arms in front of my chest, and they started glowing a strange green.

"Sensei, it seems she has used it, but not by much at all. I don't think she's a ninja, unless she has techniques that work with very miniscule amounts of chakra."

"What?" Some other ninja to my right sounded confused. And his voice was too loud and annoying for this forest.

"Naruto, I can tell you what it means later." Another ninja also to my right told the confuzzled one.

Meanwhile, I was so quiet I could hear every last single person's breathe. My towel was still one of my biggest concerns. I had had it wrapped around me very high up above my chest, and now I had a lot of cleavage showing. I gulped and tried but failed to stop the sweat from forming on the back of my neck.

"Well, hmmmm…" The man behind me went on again, "We probably should just camp next to her for the night, and keep someone on watch. If we stay for the night and no reinforcements come, we could bring her along to the village our mission is in. That way, we will know if she is telling the truth. At least, partly know. You can never know for sure…."

Now he actually sounded a little bored. That jerk, he could at least let go of me.

"All right! By the way, lady, where did you go for a swim? I'm dying to dive into a lake right now. I mean, I dunno about you, but I just got out of the desert!" the bright-but-dim one said in a significantly louder voice.

"I um…just head straight in the direction I came from…it's only a 10 minute walk or so…" I was still mumbling a little. Now that I paid attention to him, the blond bigmouth practically sprinted past me laughing, and the pink haired girl chased after him.

"NARUTO YOU BAKA!!! YOU HAVE TO WAIT!!! YOU HAVE TO SET UP THE TENT, IT'S YOUR TURN!!!!" She was only three feet behind him and gaining, but both kept running for the springs.

"Kakashi-sensei, do you need help with the tent or can I…"

"You can go, Sai." The man behind me sighed in defeat. He sure failed as the leader.

And so the last pig joined the 2 other piggy-wiggies on the way to the market…or should I say springs. Meanwhile, I was left with the man still gripping my arms. I couldn't turn to see what he was doing; all I could think about was my towel. Which I should not have done. Because when I think too hard and hope something won't happen, and I mean begging and praying and pleading it won't, it surely, undoubtedly, will come to pass.

My towel slowly fell to the ground, and alarms went off in my head. And that towel, to me, fell in slo-mo matrix motion. My inner voice was screaming in a low, deformed version of itself, NOOOOOO!!! I closed my eyes, drooped my head, and started blushing so much that I could have been mistaken for a very ripe tomato.

But nothing happened.

My arms were still being held at my sides. The man, I'm guessing, was still watching his comrades depart. It did happen in a second, after all. My mind just stretches out moments of hell like my own personal torture device.

I braced myself for the embarrassment when he turned his head, and heard a little gasp. I think a few minutes passed by. Okay, maybe only 3 seconds. But still.

"I, I, I…! I'm sorry Belle-san, I, I, I, I'll let go of you…." He was actually stuttering.

I barely registered what he was saying. All I could hear was GO FOR THE TOWEL THE SECOND YOU CAN being chanted in my brain. He let go and I immediately crouched down, swiped up my towel, and wrapped it around me, while I started to sprint for my tent. My safe haven. Made of cloth. Scratch that last part.

When got inside I grabbed my one-and-only raggedy blanket, curled up with the box of stale crackers, and cried quietly to myself. I was too worked up to even open the box before I fell into deep sleep.

Yeah, I know it ended a little emo...but that just means emotional, which is good in a story, right? :D

Any way, Belle isn't going to be such a wimp, she'll change. And Kakashi does act like his normal self later on (which is sarcastic in my story...) and he doesn't stutter really anywhere else yet. And yes, I do like to have fun with Sai's character even though I hate him in the actual Naruto series.

I all ready have lots more typed, but I had this no-so-smart idea to type the whole story into one document and now I have to break it up. :(