Naruto had been practicing his techniques for several days in a row. Every now and then, he would go into the field and use the few trees there were as target practice. At least it was better than spending an entire day watching Jiraya stare through his peeping hole in the women's sauna.

He now came out to the field every day. His record (as he put it) was about 70 hits out of 100 attempts. But he knew he had to train harder in order to beat Sasuke's record.

He kept his cool and prepared to maul the trees once more……

And then something whisked past his ear. He looked around to locate the projectile that had almost killed him. His eyes rested on a kunai knife about 3 meters away. When he picked it up he saw what looked like a note attached to it…..

And it turned out to be a note. It read:

I want to talk. I need to know you better. Meet me at the ramen shop at 8 o' clock.

Naruto was puzzled as he walked through the dimly lit streets of the village. He knew it wasn't Kakashi. He already had an argument with him today. And it couldn't be Sakura because she liked Sasuke. It can't be Shikamaru- he was on a mission. Who was this person to invite him to the ramen shop anyway???

He stopped in his tracks when he saw a blonde girl staring at him from the other end of the street. She was tall and muscular, but thin at the same time. He didn't know her from any of his previous missions, but something was very suspicious about her. As if she was hiding something from him.

"Hi. You must be Naruto. Sorry for not explaining earlier, but I was meeting up with a couple of people from a mission I took part of a while back. My name is Tetsude Yasha."

"Yasha? As in demon?" Naruto was a little shocked.

"Oh, Naruto, relax!" Tetsude said with a laugh. "I get that ALL the time!"

Naruto felt safer than he had before he met this girl. He wondered if she was a distant admirer…

"Hey!" Tetsude was extremely happy right now. "Do you want to see who can eat more ramen?"

"Would I!" Naruto ran to the shop as fast as he could.

The shopkeeper cried out, "Hey! What's this here? Naruto Uzumaki has a date?"

By the time they were finished, Naruto had eaten five bowls while Tetsude came to a whopping nine. Naruto reached into his pocket to get his coin sock, but Tetsude shoved his arm gently and said, "I'll pay. This was my invitation, anyway."

Hinata was spying on Naruto the entire day and was tracking his every movement, word and emotion he made. But when she saw Naruto with this girl, she started smearing the notes with her tears. "I knew it! The way to a boy's heart is through his stomach! Oh, why didn't I know that sooner???"

Kiba was asleep in his room when he heard soft wailing from his window. He saw Hinata crying on the roof. Kiba put on his jacket and woke Akamaru.

"What's the problem?" he asked.

"Look at that." Hinata answered.

Kiba followed Hinata's gaze to where Naruto and a foreign girl were walking along the path to the old practice area in the middle of a small forest.

"Let's follow them, Hinata"