Disclaimer: I do not own the blond one.

étude Sasunaruji

Chapter 1

The crowd screamed like one agreeing body as Neji ended the chorus shouting the last words and the cheers became like thunder as Shikamaru's guitar joined in and he etched individually picked notes into the mesh of Neji's sonorous vocals, Kiba's bass and Naruto keeping up eagerly on his drums. Unconsciously, his sticks collided even harder onto the drums as the crowd's roars grew into an impressed din when Shikamaru coupled in a slew of complicated strings.

Kiba glanced up over the rim of his hoody to the overly-excited blonde behind him and as their eyes met he fixed Naruto a glare that read, "Calm down!" Naruto returned the look with twice as much disdain as the original and then smirked when the spiky haired boy fumbled on a note as he was momentarily pushed off the edge of his patience. Kiba swung his head around, with a growl in his throat, to face the crowd again, and then he quickly regained his rhythm. He comforted himself with a vision of him leaping over the dumbass's drums and beating him to a mushy orange pulp with his bass guitar.

Neji, oblivious to the situation behind his back began the last and closing verse as Shikamaru's solo faded away:

Put x's on my eyes cause I've got no life to live,

Nothing in love balances cause we don't get what we give.

Life is so fucked up.

"HLV! HLV!" some of the crowd screamed as he took a before the chorus, a group of girls who had lined the edge of the stage at his feet cried as they called his name in desperate plea, their outstretched fingers reached out to the willowy silhouette of the brunette begging just to clasp the ends of his faded grey jeans even if they had to dislocate their arms in the process. Neji stepped back casually in time to avoid being yanked to the ground by one particularly tall and equally vicious fangirl as she jumped and swiped at his feet with what he could only describe in his head as tiger claws.

The worlds spinning, but I'm standing still

cause their all fucked up.

They think it's fun, but it's not,

every one's dancing but I'm stuck.

They know the dance but I do not,

I'm the one that was never taught.

"Woo! Woo!" Jiraiya yelled, pumping his fists in the air, making several heads turn and raising eyebrows as he was standing and shouting in the much subdued seated section of the club. He looked over the large crowd ahead on the dance floor that seemed like a darken mass of movement except for the flashes of iridescent lasers. He brought his large hands together to clap a few more times over his head before Jiraiya adopted his seat again.

Tsunade watched him fold his arms next to her, his broad shoulders squaring off more evenly under his loose, bright red t-shirt, the same shade he wore since she knew him as a child. She closed her eyes slightly as she thought about how his nephew had the same irritating obsession with the color orange.

"Well?" Jiraiya said slowly coming closer to her with his widened eyes, Tsunade just studied calmly the group of boys on her stage as they waved for the last time at the still cheering crowd, a flash of bright colors and the fair-headed one caught her eyes as he quickly ran along the edge of the stage slapping eager hands and pushing the crowd on as if the show was not over. Then one by one they disappeared back stage, Naruto, of course, had to be pulled by his collar off by Shikamaru, but it was a rather smooth exit all the same.

"They've gotten a lot better than the last time they played here." she said, "The crowds a lot bigger also."

Jiraiya's face fell suddenly and he narrowed his eyes at the woman, "You didn't think that they would improve even after I took them under my wing?"

Tsunade shook her head, "I'm just surprised by how good they've gotten in such a short space of time, I know you're good." and she muttered, "But not that good." She recalled a year ago when Jiraiya told her he was quitting his job to manage Naruto and his friend's band. She thought it was one of the dumbest things that had ever fell out from between Jiraiya's lips, the boy's had good musical talent, Shikamaru and Neji were both prodigies, but as a band together, even though they were already friends their personalities clashed violently, actually most of the problem was Naruto himself.

"Just lock them in a room together for a week and they'll come out the best of friends." Jiraiya had told her then, with a dark grin. Tsunade thought that not only was that illegal it was unrealistic.

But here they were, on stage, playing together without Kiba and Naruto attempting to impale each other with their instruments, Shikamaru complaining or Neji walking off grumbling about immaturity. In just a year the Hidden Leaf Village had two albums and a strong fan base in each of the five nations, and now Jiraiya was back at her club/casino begging her to-"So will you?" Jiraiya interrupted her thoughts intentionally, he had been watching her drift for a while now, her eyes narrowing as she got deeper in her head, they were almost slits now and he couldn't bear waiting any longer.

"Huh?"

"Would you sponsor the tour?" Jiraiya asked, "We already have three sponsors signed up, we just need one more."

"Hmm." Tsunade fell into thought again; Jiraiya's eyes widened in shock then fell into a glare as he watched her weigh the question.

"You said if they performed well you'll do it!" he exclaimed.

"I said I'd think about it." she corrected him. Jiraiya frowned, she did say that. "Besides, it's my money we're talking about, there're many other things I could be doing with it besides paying for those brats hotel rooms."

Yeah, like paying off depts., Jiraiya thought with a mental smirk, Tsunade thought no one knew she was cheap, if she only knew she was the last on Jiraiya's list of conceivable sponsors, he grasped that asking his old friend for money would be torture. Jiraiya dropped his chin onto his lifted palm in exaggerated impatience which made him look like a child.

"What are you hoping to gain from the tour?"Tsunade asked without looking at him.

Jiraiya sat up to talk seriously, "Besides more publicity, a record deal with one of the big shots."

"I thought you were getting offers from every side?"

"None that suited the interests of the band." Jiraiya said stretching his long mass in the fancy, little cushioned seat, he felt weary just remembering all those lingering meetings with company after company and each time being disappointed, even shocked, by the demands.

"The boys vowed that if they were going big they weren't changing a thing, especially not their sound. Some of the record dealers thought the songs were too depressing and dark, or violent."

"Naruto still writes most of them?" Tsunade asked and Jiraiya nodded.

The woman shook a pale-blonde lock out of her vision and then sighed. "Fine, but they're wearing t-shirts with my club's name on it for five of their shows." she said seriously.

Jiraiya smiled in triumph, "It's a deal." and they shook on it.

"The crowd could barely hear Shikamaru's solo you were beating so hard!!"the two heard a familiar voice exclaim angrily and turned to see the four they had just been talking business about coming towards them. Kiba face was inches away from Naruto's, who was glaring at his feet with his hands in his pockets; he looked like a child who knew he was wrong but stubbornly refused to admit it. Neji's face scarcely hid how much the argument was irritating him as his brow cringed deeper with every strident syllable out of Kiba's mouth and Shikamaru was slowing his pace so that he could fall further behind the entire group, make it easier to effortlessly ignore.

"Didn't you hear them cheering, they heard it just fine!"Naruto's head swiped around to shout back at Kiba.

The other boy growled, "If you would just-"

"Ookay, guess what?" Jiraiya suddenly stood and, with a velocity that Tsunade thought he could of only adapted through experience, he came in-between the two boys resting an arm on each shoulder. Maybe she spoke too soon about the band finally finding unity amongst themselves.

"Tsunade just agreed to helping us out." he told them just as Neji and Shikamaru joined at the table. Naruto immediately forgot about Kiba and swung two large sapphire eyes onto her.

"Really!?"

Tsunade answered with a detached shrug and the teen's grin grew almost too wide to be held in by his cheeks. "This is great! Now we can finally go!"

"Naruto," Neji's voice bit with a tint of annoyance, but still considerably solemn, "obviously we can't do anything at the moment without planning and organizing dates and budgets, we have to hire a vehicle and construct an unproblematic route, and purchase new equipment."

Shikamaru groaned he felt like just listening to Neji talk about the work was as tiring as doing everything the Hyuuga was speaking about all by himself.

Kiba smirked, "I think Shikamaru's about to back out." he said.

"No one's backing out." Naruto said with a scowl.

Shikamaru raised an eyebrow at him, "That sounded kinda threatening."

Naruto's expression softened, "I just meant that we're a band, so if one of us quits it won't work out."

"You know Shika, Naruto," Kiba added, "He'd rather lie in the park with his boyfriend watching cloud. Besides," Kiba clamped a hand heavily on Neji's shoulders and lithium like eyes glanced at it wondering where the dirty paws had been last. "we'll be leaving all that stuff to Neji here."

"Uh." Neji appeared gracefully shocked, and slightly worried.

Naruto saw him and grinned again, "Or, I can always do it." he said and Neji's eyes widened as a most horrific picture of the outcome of the witless blonde having anything to do with planning the tour flashed in his mind. Oh, the disorder!!

"No, I'll do it." he said quickly and shivers went through him like aftershocks as the image faded.

"Isn't that the job of the manager?" Tsunade eyed Jiraiya, pointing the question spitefully at him.

"Hey! Hey!" Jiraiya said, "It Neji says he can do it why would you go underestimating him?" Jiraiya came closer to Neji looking into his icy eyes and then said encouragingly, "I believe in you Neji." The brunette watched him with slight scorn to show him he was not buying it, but his manager's stare slowly drifted to something just behind the outline of Neji's waist length hair. One of Tsunade's short skirted waitresses had bent over to rest a drink Neji cringed and teardropped as he witnessed Jiraiya drool forgetting the teen was even standing right in front of him, like he'd practically disappeared.

"Excuse me." he barely muttered coherently before he passed Neji and went after her.

"Hey you pervert, leave my employees alone!" Tsunade shot up slamming both hands on the table but Jiraiya's ears were too filled with lusty goo to hear anything so she stormed after him.