Sasuke knocked three times on the door of a now familiar apartment. He had spent hours here and he wanted nothing more than to burn it down and remove every bad memory but finally they succeeded. After all the hell they went through for this and more. They had all somehow managed to stay in their respective runnings and thus stack the teams.
They could finally be a family.
Sakura opened the door when he raised his hand to knock again.
She gave a wide grin and pulled him in.
"You're late. What happened, fan girls swamp your ass again?" She asked as he pulled off his shoes.
"Yea, the damn things came out of no where and nearly dragged my ass to Kami knows where," He said as he looked around.
Good, looks like Naruto got started on packing for moving. Sasuke and Sakura were forcing him to move into the Uchiha compound with him; Sakura was also moving in also.
She fed a story about how teams that moved in together worked together better than teams that lived separately to her parents and somehow, they bought it. How, Naruto and Sasuke will never figure out.
"Oh. Ouch. If I knew, I could have rescued you."
"What, you want me carry a flare gun so that every time that I need help with the fan girls I could call for you? Like that will happen."
"Don't tempt me."
A chuckle interrupted the fight. Sakura and Sasuke looked up to see Naruto in a bathrobe with two scrolls in his hands.
"Get changed you goofballs, everything is in the scrolls, I'm gonna have clones finish the packing while we change," Naruto chuckled as he tossed the scrolls to the two and turned. Making a cross hand sign with his hands, Naruto created about fifteen clones, "Alright boys; we have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. So go from room to room and pack everything quickly and carefully. Once everything is packed in boxes, seal them in storage scrolls and those scrolls in a bigger one for easy transport. We have to be out of the apartment by five o'clock pm today and it's now two-thirty. So go get started," He said, "And make sure you have everything! Don't touch the screens in the living room!"
The clones dispersed, some heading for the kitchen, some for the living/dining room and some towards the bathroom, opening the closets on the way by. Naruto shook his head fondly and turned to see Sakura and Sasuke staring at him.
"Go!" Naruto ordered, causing the two to take off towards the screens one of them decorated with a cherry blossom pattern and one covered with little tomatoes. Sasuke slid behind the tomato one while Sakura took the cherry blossoms. A poof signified that they as released the contents of the scroll successfully.
He remembered that one scroll fiasco when they were little.
The Hokage had laughed his ass off when he had seen that.
Silence filled the house as the only noise was the rustling of fabric and the clinking of metal. Sasuke finished first and stepped out from behind the screen. He was wearing a grayish-black muscle shirt with a V-neckline and matching tapered pants. A shoulder guard made of a dark metal and a matching gauntlet adorned his right arm while a leather bracer was on his left. A tattoo of a raising black phoenix in flight stretched up his left arm. He was so glad to have the long sleeves and the covering gloves off, those damn things itch!
A rustle behind him caught his attention. He looked over to see Sakura step out from behind her screen and came into view.
She was dressed in a brown leather micro skirt and a crop top shirt with a short asymmetrical off the shoulder peasant sleeve on the left side as well as a leather shoulder guard on the right. She had on sheer tights on that had clips that disappeared up the skirt. Her tattoo was a red bull covered in flames charging down her right arm. Her hair was pulled back into a low ponytail and she tugged at it irritably and walked over to the entrance way to drop her thigh high boots on the mat.
"You look good Sakura."
"Tanks."
Damn, not her too!
"Don't start on the tanks! Just don't!"
"Why, does it bug you Sasuke-kun?" She teased.
"Damn you woman."
"Knock it off. I swear that you two act like a pack of kids and I thought I was the childish one."
Both genin turned to see Naruto and… hot damn! He looked good!
He changed into a silky brocade orange and black high collar dress. His hair was loose; reaching own to his knees and he had some things in his hand that they knew that were going to end up in his hair. A set of masks were in his other hand and black slippers adorned his feet. Sheer gloves covered his arms and the seals that were painted on there could be vaguely seen.
He looked like a girl.
Sasuke knew for a fact that there were also seals on his hips as well.
Well he painted them on!
Minds out of gutter!
"Nice look Naruto! Everyone will think you are a chick and underestimate you. When they do… BAM! They're out!" Sakura cackled as she looped an arm around his shoulder. Sasuke snorted as Naruto tried to pry her off.
"Sakura, Let me go! I need my hair braided, who wants to do it?"
Sakura and Sasuke looked at each other and seemed to have a conversation without words. Sakura glowered at Sasuke while a smirk graced his face.
"I'll do it," Sasuke said while Sakura's glower got worse.
"Really? Thank you!" Naruto grinned at Sasuke with his million dollar smile.
That million dollar smile that made Sasuke's heart melt and Sakura smile softly. This smile saved them, Sasuke from the need to have revenge against the man that killed his clan and Sakura from both a life she didn't want and a betrothal that could have killed her if she had not gotten out. That smile and that personality and that sense of wonder that had somehow did not die after all the bull that Naruto had gone through in his life. That endless love and forgiveness and that unending need to help others. That unrelenting need and desire to serve Konoha and the need to protect the people of the village, even the ones that had hurt him for something as silly as Kyuubi No Yoko.
Sasuke grabbed everything that was going into his hair. Shinobi wire, seal tags of all kinds and the elastics. He turned Naruto around and divided his hair into three parts and started to braid. He weaved the wire and the tags in with the hair. Over and under; tag and wire. All of it making a braid that reached his hips. Sasuke quickly placed an elastic at the ends. He took the end in his hand and started looping it into a bun. He used the other elastic- stretching it over- to keep it in place. Two deceptively pretty senbon was slipped in, creating a dangerously elegant hair piece. Sasuke stepped back, surveying his handy work with satisfaction.
Now they could see the elusive fox tattoo on his back clearly.
"Nice work Sasuke. If the Shinobi field doesn't work out, you could be a hair-stylist," Sakura deadpanned as the clones started to file in. One of them had a giant scroll and the rest had smaller scrolls.
"Ready to seal," One of the clones said as the rest gathered close.
"Ok, you can go. Leave the scrolls here," Naruto instructed as the clones poofed out of existence. The last one nodded with a soft smile and plopped the giant one in front of Naruto and exploded in a puff of white smoke. Naruto gathered up all of the small scrolls and opened the bigger scroll of the floor. Placing the scrolls on the paper one by one, he sealed them with a flick of his chakra. The masks and changing screens were next. Once he was done, he picked the scroll up and slung it onto his back.
"Time to go, the landlord is on his way now that it's three-thirty and he also wants me to pay extra for 'not telling him two weeks in advance' even though I told him two months ago," Naruto said just as the bang of feet on wood reached their ears.
"Quick, out the back! GO, GO, GO! " Naruto yelped as he dropped an envelope on the table and bolted for the balcony. Sakura slipped her boots on and took off after him with Sasuke-in his sandals-on her heels. Naruto leapt off first, landing with the grace of a jungle panther and ran to the edge of the next roof and jumped to the second roof.
"Come on! Hurry!"
Sasuke and Sakura leapt off the balcony, looking like a pair of birds to the on-lookers below and landed, just as the man started to yell. Something along the lines of, 'Get back here you demonic slut and give me my money!'
"Did you give him the money?" Sakura asked as they jumped from roof to roof.
"Yep. It's on the kitchen table."
"Brat."
"I love you too."
And he smiled that million dollar smile.
New Story! This one is a wee bit different. Read and review and I don't own Naruto... Even though I wish I could...