She swore, if she had known that Minato snored this much, she would never had married the man.
But this presented her with a perfect opportunity. Did he really expect to steal her ramen and get away with it, did he? She had hoped the Governor of Konoha was smarter than that, but here he was, sleeping unprotected. She thanked the gods that Minato could be so daft sometimes, trusting Kushina when asleep. She was sure to take advantage of that.
Kushina knew that, while he didn't absolutely love ramen like her, that man loved his sweets as equally as he loved his wife. Being oh, so careful, she snuck out of bed and into his drawer where he stashed his sweets and put them in her drawer. It was so simple, but so devious. He would be totally unsuspecting until he had a craving (he was worse than Kushina during her pregnancy). When that happened, all she had to do was sit back and grin while he accused everyone in the house. Only he would never accuse his wife (he wasnt that stupid), so that left Naruto to take the brunt of Minato's wrath. But in her opinion, he still hadn't cleaned his room, so he deserved it. In her opinion, it worked out beautifully.
Who said revenge wasn't sweet? It still wasn't as good as ramen, though.
Suddenly the bedroom, which had been pleasantly warm, turned ice cold, so cold that Kushina could see her breath come out in small puffs of white cloud. Not one to be alarmed easily, she glanced at the window. Closed, as always. Strange. Confused now, the grey eyed woman got out of bed and out the door. Perfectly normal temperature. Even stranger. A little worried now, she turned to walk back into the bedroom when she saw something that made her entire body freeze in a terror that she hadn't felt before.
Right above her husband, a teenage girl with long blonde hair in a ponytail was staring curiously at the sleeping man. But that wasn't what made her blood run cold. It the fact that the transparent girl was floating above his head. She was about to scream when a memory flashed in her mind.
"Hey, Mom, I want you to remember something important for me, ok?"
"Sure, sweetie. What is it?"
"You know my 'profession', don't you?"
"I've never really thought of looking for ghosts as a 'profession' before, but, yeah."
"If you are to ever encounter a ghost, ever, there is one important thing you need to do."
"What's that?"
"Get me."
'Get Naruto?' Kushina thought worriedly. 'But what if he gets hurt? But, he does this all the time. Oh, he and I are so gonna have a talk about his 'profession' when this – this thing goes away.' Stepping away slowly, she glanced down the hallway at Naruto's door at the end before looking at Minato and the ghost again. The blue eyed man was still sleeping peacefully, not quite snoring but not quite quietly either, while the girl was just watching him. She seemed fascinated by the way he breathed in the cold air. Deciding that Minato wasn't in any immediate danger, she inched toward the end of the hallway until she was out of the ghost's sight before sprinting quietly to the door with the ramen smell coming from underneath.
Pushing the door open, Kushina dashed to her sleeping son's side, shaking him furiously, "Wake up! Wake up, quickly! Hurry!" She glanced over shoulder toward her bedroom before looking back at Naruto, who was yawning and stretching tiredly.
"Mm? What's up?" He asked sleepily. However, when he saw his mother's face tight with worry, the Uzumaki teen knew something was amiss. "Mom, what's going on?" He whispered urgently, getting out of bed already.
The shorter woman was shaking in fear, something Naruto had never seen in her before. "I-In the b-bedroom. I-It's a-a g-g-ghost." The last sentence ended in a scared whisper. At this, the blonde's cerulean eyes widened and he gasped.
His face was one of shock before his mother's near sobs of terror shook him out of his stupor. Quickly grabbing her shoulders, he turned her and sat her on his bed, "I want you to stay here, ok?" He said seriously, "Ghosts can be unpredictable but usually harmless. Just let me handle it and I'll get my team here first thing in the morning. Promise."
Kushina nodded shakily and whispered, "Go. Your father is still asleep and the g-ghost is there, watching him. I think she's intrigued or something."
"Ok," he said before setting off down the hall and toward his parents' bedroom. And, sure enough, just as his mother said, there was a girl who appeared to be about his age. She was wearing a purple tank top and matching purple shorts with purple and white striped knee high socks. The blonde looked to be a normal girl. Naruto wondered how she died.
So as not to startle her, he made sure to steep on the creaky floorboard just outside his parent's bedroom door. The girl whipped around quickly, light blue eyes wide in surprise. Then Naruto saw how she had died.
There was a slit in her throat that covered her entire front in dark red. From years of experience, Naruto managed to keep the look of shock off of his face. When the ghost made no move to talk, the Uzumaki stepped forward slowly, cautiously. She made no move still. He took a couple more steps. Still no movement besides her floating up and down slightly. When Naruto was a few yards from her, he decided to speak.
"Who are you?" He asked quietly.
The girl frowned at him, "Ino. Okay, my turn for a question. Is this the Uzumaki house?"
The blonde male stiffened slightly. What could this ghost want? "Maybe. Depends on why you want to know."
Ino looked frustrated, "Look here, buddy. I came here because another ghost invaded my home and he isn't as nice as me. So, me and my friends had to leave and now I don't know where one of them is. I was hoping that this was the house of Uzumaki Naruto, one of the Poltergeist Detectives. He's the closest one to my house and I really need to find my friend." Her eyes sparkled in faint hope, "Are you Naruto?"
He hesitated slightly before answering, "Yeah, I'm Naruto."
The girl looked immensely relieved, "Thank God! I really need your help, Naruto-san. Please."
"Okay, I'll help. But I do have a question. Why were you staring at my father?"
"Oh, that. Well, I-I had only seen glimpses of you and I couldn't tell if he was you or not. Besides, I haven't seen a living person in ten years."
He nodded, motioning her out of the room and down the hallway to his room where Kushina was. "Okay, I'll call everyone in the morning, but right now, I need to show my mom that you aren't a danger to us. You really scared her you know."
The blonde looked guilty, "I didn't mean to, I was trying to find you!"
They then walked into Naruto's bright orange room that was littered with dirty clothes and empty instant ramens. The ghostly teen scrunched her nose up in distaste. She would have gone the extra distance and danger to see the cuter one if she had known that this one was such a slob. And if she hadn't been chased out of her home by a stranger ghost. Even if the stranger ghost was kinda cute.
"Oh, Naruto, you're – " Kushina then caught sight of the ghost right behind her son and nearly screamed for the third time that night before the blonde male covered her mouth just as she drew in breath.
"It's okay, Mom. I promise." When he was sure that she wasn't going to yell, he let go of her mouth and continued talking, "Her name is Ino and all she wants is my help to find her friend. I wanted you to see her for yourself and see that she's not going to hurt any of us. She's just lost and confused."
The redheaded mother seemed to calm down some and looked into the blonde ghost's eyes. Ino smiled reassuringly and bowed low, "My apologies for startling you, ma'am. I just want to find my friend."
Kushina smiled faintly, "Well, that's alright, honey. I've never seen a . . . ghost before."
"It's okay," Ino smiled again, "I haven't seen a living human in ten years."
Naruto gently pushed his mother out towards the door, "See? Everything is alright. I'm gonna go to bed and sort this out tomorrow. G'night, Mom." With a kiss on the cheek, Kushina went back to bed, albeit, a little disturbed.
The Uzumaki turned and trudged back to his warm, inviting bed before collapsing on it tiredly. The other blonde glanced at him derisively, "What are you doing?"
"Going to bed," Naruto replied without lifting his head from the pillows. "Why?"
"What about me?" Ino wailed quietly, careful not to wake Kushina up again. "What am I supposed to do all night?!"
He lifted his head and glared at the ghost, "You've been dead for ten years and yet you don't have something to do during the night?"
"Listen, you," she snarled with dark fury coloring her tone, "I don't know what I did to make you so mad at me besides waking you up from a night of sleep, but my best friend is in danger. The man that came to our house is no ordinary ghost. He scared her, he really scared her. I just want to find her before anything bad happens. And, besides," here, her sky blue eyes seemed smothered in sadness, "I usually talk to her at night."
Naruto was about to apologize when he saw a silvery liquid, reflecting the full moon shining in through his open window, fall and silently hit the floor before vanishing. She was crying, tears streaking down her cheeks and her hands curled into fists. He felt bad about snapping at her; it wasn't her fault that he got woken up in the middle of the night. It was his job to help ghosts and that job apparently didn't end when they left base.
"I'm sorry. There is no excuse for me getting mad at you. I'm sorry," he repeated softly.
A memory sprang unbidden from the depths of her mind and she froze under the power of it.
"No, Mommy, don't go! Please don't go!"
"I'm sorry, sugar, it's not your fault, I promise. I'll see you one day."
"No, NO! Mommy, no, please don't leave me here! Whatever happened to make you leave, just fix it! Please don't go, Mommy, PLEASE!"
"I'm sorry."
"Mommy *sob* don't go *sob*."
She sniffed, "Whatever, just go to bed." With that, she drifted over to the window and hovered there, staring out the window, almost as if searching for her friend.
"Wake up! Rise and shine!"
Naruto groaned, "Five more minutes, Dad."
With a startled yelp, Naruto felt his blankets being ripped off of him and then the mattress flipped. The end result was the blonde lying flat on his face, whiskered cheek pressed against the wooden floor, with the heavy mattress lying on top of him. He groaned when the mattress was flung off of him and he being dragged by his morning-lover of a father .
"Rise and shine, son. You have to help that poor ghost today."
The teens cerulean blue eyes widened, "Oh yeah, I almost forgot! Wait, how do you know about her?"
"Your mother told me," Minato explained, still dragging his son down the hallway and closer to the stairway. "I think it's the perfect opportunity for you to show us how mature you are, son." And then he let him go at the top of the steps and went downstairs where the smell of . . . you guessed it, ramen, forced Naruto to 'rise and shine', as his father had put it.
"Morning, sweetie," Kushina greeted when he stumbled down the stairs. "How did you sleep last night?"
"Good morning, Mom. Good morning, Ino." He nodded a greeting to the translucent blonde who had materialized behind his mother. Said mother whirled around, a hand on her heart that was, no doubt, beating rapidly, and Minato stood up from the chair he was sitting in, looking at the ghost with an expression of near mistrust.
"You," she pointed to the phone, "call them," her stare intensified into a glare that was becoming very familiar, "now."
"Can't you let me eat first?" Naruto whined pitifully. He never worked well without breakfast.
She continued glaring at him before growling at him, "Can't you do both?"
The Uzumaki looked horrified, "Of course not! Food has to come first! Always!"
The blonde ghost narrowed her pale eyes, but said nothing more before floating over to a chair and sitting down, focusing on the patterns of the reddish wood. The family was silent but the girl didn't seem to notice, lost in the years of memories, most likely concerning her friend.
'Please, please, let us find you in one piece. Please. Don't let him find you again.'
This is the beginning of something that I started a looong time ago. I have a couple of other chapters that are done and I'm working on it, but I won't post another chapter until I get something like 5 reviews. If not, then no second chapter. So, please . . . review! :)
~Dogtooth