Sasuke had been back for two years now, yet Naruto could not stop his nightly excursion to see if his friend slept soundly in his room. Far enough away not to be detected, yet close enough to see clearly with the help of binoculars, he saw Sasuke meditating on the contents of some ridiculously long scroll. He yawned, satisfied, and headed towards his own apartment; a few blocks from the one he'd just seen. As he turned the key to his unit,
he mused upon what a pointless effort it was to lock your door in a city filled with shinobi, but closed the door behind him and locked it anyway.
A dark silhouette stood by his bed, one that he immediately recognized as Shikamaru.

"Can't you just knock like normal people?" Naruto was pissed and ready to sleep.

"You've got about two hours sleeping time before your next mission. You would've had about 5 if you weren't out spying on comrades." Shikamaru unfolded a scroll and rolled his eyes at the highly insulted and highly defensive person before him.

"What?! I wasn't- man screw you." And with a great show of pouting and arm folding, he sat down and waited for the details.

"You, Sasuke, and Sakura's replacement are going to retreive three items that were stolen from Konoha over 200 years ago," he began, quite eager to end this meeting.

Naruto winced. Sakura had left Konoha to live in the Sand Village earlier that year without a word of explanation.

"Hey! Are you even listening to me you moron?" Shikamaru grabbed his head with his kagemane and forced Naruto to look straight at him. "One more time. You will leave for the Northern Mountain Kingdom at dawn tomorrow. You're looking for three scrolls-"

"Sounds like a D-rank mission that you should give to someone else." He smiled, pleased at the exasperated sigh that his actions produced.

Shikamaru tightened his shadow around Naruto's neck and continued. "Whoever sent this information to Konoha sent it to every other hidden village, so it has become S-rank because you are more than sure to meet enemies along the way."

He choked on laughter as tears streamed down his cheeks at Shikamaru's efforts. "So you're taking the bait," he coughed, "and sending us into an obvious trap to get this shit! Whoever informed the nations is just waiting for the dirty work to be done, and then he'll make his move." He paused and said, "I'll do it!"

"Tsunade is more interested in who wants the scrolls than whether or not you retrieve them. Here is the paperwork and all the information we have on the scrolls. Study it. Sasuke also has a copy...but you knew that already didn't you?" he said with a knowing grin and then he was gone.

"Wait! Who's the new girl?? Who is she?" he called out, but Shikamaru was gone.