They went up to security and, more or less, all walked through without setting off the detector. Except for Shino. He must have walked through it a good ten times as everyone groaned with every time the lights flashed and beeped.
"Sir, we're going to have to ask you to remove your coat and shoes." Said one of the officers.
Shino reached into the little bowl that he had all his accessories in and pulled out his wallet. The officer watched curiously as Shino shuffled through some credit cards and IDs before finally pulling out a card that suited him and handed it to the man.
He looked at it and then handed the card back to Shino. "I see." He said. "Have a nice trip."
He handed Shino all his accessories and then they were off!
"What was that all about?" Kiba asked Shino.
"It's my Aburame ID." Said Shino. "We've recently found that chakra bugs set off the alarms."
"Ohh…" said Kiba.
They reached Gate 36 and waited and waited and waited. Then Chouji rejoined them with his tales of the horrible experiences of baggage check. After he was done, they waited some more.
Finally, the stewardess announced that it was time to board first class.
"That's us." Said Neji, standing up. He and Hichou were just about to walk off when he noticed that no one else was moving.
"You ordered first class tickets?" said Naruto with a raised eyebrow.
"Well…yeah." Said Neji as if something besides first class was just unfathomable. "You guys didn't?"
"No…" said everyone else.
"I have to go and get in my seat now." Said Neji.
"We'll see you after the flight!!" said Lee, giving Neji the thumbs up. He wasn't taunting him or making fun of him. He genuinely was going to see Neji after the flight.
So Neji took Hichou and the two of them got on the plane.
After waiting a little more, everyone eventually made it on to the plane. And, after waiting EVEN MORE, the plane finally took off!!
"How long is this flight?" Kajitsu asked both her parents.
"It's pretty long." Sakura answered. "You should try going to sleep."
"I can't go to sleep!" whined Kajitsu. "I'm bored!"
"Why don't you color or something?" Naruto suggested, pulling a coloring book out of Kajitsu's little carry-on bag. He opened her tray table and put some crayons on it. She would be entertained…for a little while…
"My ears still hurt." Said Hana, covering her ears.
"It'll go away after a few minutes." Sasuke assured her.
"But it hurts a lot…" Hana said.
"Don't worry." Said Ino. "Try to think of something else. Try listening to music and put the headphones on." Ino set the headphones on the Ronald McDonald radio station. It doesn't take much to distract a five-year-old.
Hinata was also having her shares of troubles with the airplane. You see, Hinata is frightened of many things so why shouldn't she be afraid of flying? As the plane encountered some turbulence, Hinata jumped into the air and latched on to Kiba who was sitting next to her. She would have screamed, but she was FAR to scared to do that.
"Don't worry, Hinata!" said Kiba who was far from being scared. Of anything. "It's just a little turbulence! It happens all the time!"
"Okay…" said Hinata but she didn't let go of Kiba.
Senjou was currently doing a crossword puzzle in his particular row with Kiba and Hinata. He didn't know exactly how he had ended up with them, but he was, and at least they had been kind enough to let him have the window seat.
"Oh my god, I am SO afraid of flying!" said Tashoku. She was sitting in between Sasuke Jr. and Lil Lee. She didn't know how she got there either. She also could have been lying about her fear of flying, but who was going to know?
"What's to be afraid of?" Lil Lee asked.
"Crashing!" Tashoku said. "I'm so scared!"
"There's nothing to be afraid of." Said Sasuke Jr. "Planes don't crash very often. They're safer than driving a car."
"What are we going to do when we get to Kokomo?!" Lee asked Tenten eagerly.
"It's YOUR birthday, Lee." Tenten reminded him. "So pretty much anything that YOU want to do."
"This is going to be so much fun!" said Lee contently.
Lil Gai would have normally contributed to his family's conversation but was currently in a conversation with Inoshi, Shika and Cho who were sitting in the row across from him.
"This flight is already too long…" said Inoshi, looking out the window.
"Yeah, it's boring!" said Lil Gai.
"What can we do for fun?" Shika asked.
"Any ideas, Inoshi?" Cho said, leaning over Shika to speak to Inoshi.
"Uhh…" said Inoshi, suddenly realizing that it was up to him to think of a fun plan. After all, he was the oldest and the biggest and he weighed the most.
Shikamaru was sitting behind Inoshi, looking out the window. Chouji occupied the two seats next to Shikamaru and was currently reading a magazine that illustrated the in-flight movies.
"Shikamaru, look!" said Chouji, hitting Shikamaru's shoulder to get his attention. "They're playing Shrek for the movie!"
"Wow." Said Shikamaru, trying not to sound TOO uninterested.
"Are you going to watch the movie?" Chouji asked. Shikamaru shrugged. "I'll get us some headphones so we can watch the movie." He reached up and pressed the stewardess button and, within a minute, she was over. "Do you think we could have two sets of headphones please?"
"Of course." Said the stewardess as she reached into her cart and handed Chouji a pair and reached over to hand Shikamaru a pair but then gasped. "Hey, aren't you the Sixth?"
"I WAS." Shikamaru said. "I'm retired now."
"Oh I know that!" said the stewardess. "I think you were the best Hokage of them all! You did so much to improve our village."
"I think saying that I was the best is going a little too far." Shikamaru said.
"No charge for the headphones!" said the stewardess and she pushed her cart off to go and tell her stewardess friends that the Sixth Hokage was on the plane.
By process of elimination, Shikataro and Shino ended up sitting next to each other. But they weren't sitting NEXT to each other…Shikataro had the window seat and was just gazing blankly out it like Shikamaru. Shino didn't care where he sat. And, since Shino knew that Shikataro probably wouldn't want to sit next to him, he took the isle seat. He was just glad to finally be away from loud people who wanted to befriend him.
"Dad, when are they going to turn on Shrek?" Hichou asked Neji. They were sitting comfortably with plenty of legroom and large seats so there were only two per row. It's not like Hichou NEEDED the legroom though but still.
"All in good time." Neji replied as he read his magazine.
Meanwhile, Sasuke was entering his house one day. He had just done some morning shopping, hoping to return home before the rest of his family awoke so that they could have some breakfast materials before they went off to school or to train. But the lights were on, so he figured that they were already awake.
He opened the door and looked around. Immediately, he knew something was wrong so he put the grocery bag down and searched through his house. It was empty, but then he got into the final room to find the bodies of his wife and all his children mangled and strewn across the floor. Standing over their dead bodies was…
Naruto?
"I've come to finish the job!" said Naruto evilly as he took a swipe at Sasuke.
It was then that Sasuke awoke frantically. He looked around to find that he was still on an airplane flying to Kokomo.
"Sasuke, are you all right?" Ino asked, leaning over Hana. She had just noticed that he had jerked awake in terrifying fear.
"Oh…right, fine." Said Sasuke, leaning back in his chair. It was all just a dream and Naruto didn't REALLY kill his clan. His NEW clan. He looked up at the seatbelt light to see that it was off. "I'm going to go and use the bathroom."
"All right…" said Ino as Sasuke got up and made his way to the bathroom.
Lil Lee was engaging himself in a game of solitaire. Sasuke Jr. was looking out the window in a bored fashion and Tashoku was shifting back and forth in her seat.
Finally, she leaned over to Lil Lee. "How about we play a two-player game?" she requested.
"Could we play a three-player game?" Sasuke Jr. said, turning around as well. He was just waiting for someone else to say it first.
"Fine." Said Lil Lee, picking up the cards. "I was cheating anyway."
"What should we play?" asked Tashoku.
"How about Go Fish?" suggested Sasuke Jr.
Lil Lee dealt out the cards for Go Fish. Tashoku debated with herself whether she wanted to cheat or not by using her Byakugan… since YES, she could use it.
"Tashoku, you go first." Said Lil Lee.
She figured they'd NEVER know. So she Byakuganed both of their hands. "Sasuke…do you have any threes?"
"Yeah." Said Sasuke Jr. as he pulled a three out of his hand and handed it to her.
"Tashoku, do you have any—" started Lil Lee.
"Wait, I thought I got to go again if I guessed a card from your hand!" said Tashoku.
"I don't play it that way." Said Lil Lee.
"I play it that way." Said Sasuke Jr.
"Me too." Said Tashoku.
"They're MY cards." Lil Lee pointed out.
Inoshi, Shika, Cho and Lil Gai were planning something evil. "All right, does everyone understand the plan?" said Inoshi to the other three.
"We got it down perfect!" said Shika.
"When you yell that the wing's on fire, we're gonna—" started Cho.
"SHREK'S STARTING!!" yelled Lil Gai as he hastily grabbed his headphones and put them on.
The twins gasped and did the same. Pretty soon, the three of them were mesmerized by the beginning of the movie. Inoshi watched them for a minute and decided to just watch Shrek as well so he picked up his headphones and began to enjoy the movie.
Then Sasuke returned from the bathroom to see that there was a small girl in his seat… and it WASN'T Hana.
"Oh, I hope you don't mind, Sasuke!" said Ino. "Kajitsu wanted to sit next to Hana! I think it's good so they can be friends!"
"Where am I going to sit?" Sasuke questioned.
"In her seat… in between Sakura and Naruto!" Ino said. "You three have a lot of catching up to do anyway so you might as well start now!"
"Yeah, come on Sasuke!" said Sakura, patting the empty seat next to her.
Sasuke was a bit high-strung after his dream and didn't want to have to sit next to Naruto, but Hana already appeared to be making friends with Kajitsu and he didn't want his only daughter to be unhappy. So he reluctantly sat himself down in between his two old teammates.
"It's been so long!" said Naruto. "What have you been up to?"
Even though Sasuke knew that Naruto didn't kill his family, it was still an open wound for him. After all, he had gone through that ONCE. And, while he had had the dream that his family was killed many, many times before… it was usually Itachi. There was NO reason why it was Naruto this time around unless Naruto had some secret evil ambitions to wipe out the Uchiha clan. The NEW Uchiha clan.
"Nothing much." Sasuke said.
"I think we should do something during this vacation…" sighed Sakura. "Just the three of us, I mean. So we can do a little catching up!"
"You two see each other all the time." Sasuke said.
"Yeah but we never see you!" said Sakura. "And if you don't remember correctly, I used to be obsessed with you!" Naruto leaned over Sasuke and glared at Sakura. "But not anymore!" she added quickly with a laugh.
"I suppose…" said Sasuke, fully not intending to do that.
Our game of Go Fish was extremely enthralling. It never occurred to Lil Lee or Sasuke Jr. that Tashoku could use her Byakugan because, frankly, they didn't particularly know exactly what a Byakugan was or what it did or how to tell that someone was using it. Tashoku only made herself fish when she needed the cards but, other than that, she had every single pair in the deck.
"I'm the winner!" cheered Tashoku. "Do you two want to play again?"
"Um…no." said Lil Lee as he took the cards and put them back in the pack. Sasuke Jr. shook his head and looked out the window again.
Tashoku was now horrified. She never thought of the fact that men have pride and they hate losing to girls, even if it was at something silly like cards! Now they both HATED her!!
"Um…" she started. "You know, I just…I have a ninja skill that I… I cheated actually…"
Lil Lee and Sasuke Jr. turned their heads and looked at her.
"You see…" Tashoku tried to explain. "It's called the Byakugan that only Hyuugas have. Well, I'm HALF Hyuuga but I still have it too. But it's kind of like x-ray vision and binoculars."
She watched hopefully as the two of them processed that.
"X-ray vision…that's kind of cool." Said Sasuke Jr. Lil Lee nodded.
Tashoku gave a sigh of relief and decided not to end this conversation. But she couldn't make it about HER anymore! "So, what do you guys do?" she asked. "You're both chuunins right?"
"I know a lot of techniques." Said Sasuke Jr. "I have the Sharingan…so I can pretty much just copy anything anyone does."
"That's neat!" said Tashoku. "That's an advanced bloodline, right? I just so happened to inherit two advanced bloodlines…but I don't know if you'd call the Inuzuka part of the advanced bloodline category…though I do!"
"Let's talk about something else." Said Lil Lee.
By and the by, the plane flew and flew. Eventually, it landed. The entire group waited at baggage claim and collected all their baggage and traveled out to where they would catch a bus.