Disclaimer: I wish I did own Naruto but sadly this is not the case.

The Suna shinobi guarding the sole entrance through the outer wall of the village hidden in the sand were on high alert. The night before, the village had been attacked by the Akatsuki organization, and the nighttime group of guards had been decimated. Not by the dangerous missing-nins themselves, but by a traitor among their ranks.

Yüra-sama, a member of Suna's ruling council, whose task was to advice the Kazekage himself, had revealed himself as a traitor and spy, and had taken the gate guards by surprise, slaughtering most of them. If it were not by the special shinobi group under Baki-sama's orders that patrolled the village in random patterns since a few months ago, the traitorous councilman would have managed to kill all of the guards and the Akatsuki would have been allowed to strike at the heart of the village unhindered; it had been bad enough as it was.

As it stood, the replacement guards were skittish and jumped at their own shadows, and now more than ever, since the sun was about to set, the first night after the attack aimed at their Kazekage. So it was no surprise their attentiveness paid off when they easily noticed a cloud of sand rising over the eastern horizon, too localized to be the wind of the desert sunset and accompanied with a dull, barely heard thud, akin to a muffled, far off explosion. They scrambled for cover and to raise the alert when they saw a dark… something, shoot like a missile out of the sand cloud and land around the middle of the way to their position.

It jumped again towards them and at that distance they could recognize the features of the gargantuan, brown-skinned desert toad coursing through the air in a parabolic arc bound to end somewhere very near the village's entrance itself. The commanding officer of the garrison was about to raise the alarm when a hand stopped him. It was Baki, the right hand of the Kazekage himself who did so, and told him:

-"Stop that. They are allies from Konoha, requested by the Kazekage."-

He didn't made mention of the Konoha shinobi arriving a whole day earlier than anticipated, but the gigantic toad was a dead giveaway; there were only two shinobi capable of performing that particular summoning and both were into the confidence of their leader. Baki jumped off the watchtower embedded into the outer wall itself to receive their allies.

The huge desert amphibian landed barely fifty feet away from the wall itself, sending a shower of sand up and away from its landing place. By the time the sand settled back onto the ground, four shinobi had jumped off the toad's head. It laughed with its booming voice, and said:

-"Next time you visit the mountain you should come visit my house, Naruto-chan. We'll have a spar, ok?"-

-"Sure thing, Gamakaku-san. I'll be sure to drop by and visit. See ya, and thanks for the ride"-

The toad waved goodbye and disappeared in a huge burst of smoke, leaving the four shinobi standing in front of Baki and under the watchful eyes of the guards, many of them twitching at the thought of sparring with the giant toad. The first kunoichi, with dirty blond hair in four ponytails, a dark battle kimono and a giant fan at her back was easily recognized as Sabaku no Temari, Suna jönin and older sister of their Kazekage. Almost equally recognized was the man standing next to her, with a Konoha headband covering his left eye, silver spiky hair and a Icha Icha novel on his hand; word of Konoha's infamous "Sharingan no Kakashi" had traveled far and wide, after all. The second kunoichi, in a standard Konoha uniform with extra long sleeves and short, dark brown hair was a classical beauty and yet went unrecognized, for very few shinobi knew the face of the Slug Princess apprentice, and none were among the observers. And finally, the second blonde of the group, sun-kissed hair tied in two pigtails and sporting a provocative black and orange outfit, she could be recognized by a few people in Suna, but of those only Baki was present.

Said shinobi bowed lightly to Temari, and said:

-"Welcome back, Temari. It is good to see you back and well."-

Baki acknowledged the presence of both Kakashi and Shizune, assuming correctly she was the medic-nin sent as per Gaara's request; and to the surprise of many of Suna and the two older Konoha ninja, turned to Naruto and bowed to her too:

-"Welcome to you too, Uzumaki-sama. I'm glad to see you made such a good time. Please, Kankuro is this way"-

Without further ado, the recently arrived shinobi jumped after Baki, who hurried towards one of the dome-like, sandstone buildings that were situated in the central zone of the village. Quickly, they made their way inside the several-stories building, realizing it was a medical facility, although Shizune's analytical eye could see it was sparsely equipped with the bare needs of an operative hospital.

Soon enough they found themselves in the intensive care unit, in a white, round room with two beds, one where Sabaku no Kankuro was lying, connected to a I.V. and a monitoring machine and the other with an older male; while a couple of medic-nins stood in a corner, examining a blood sample with a microscope. Temari hurried to her brother's side, and say that he was unconscious, feverish and sweated profusely. To Kakashi's surprise, Naruto went to the Suna shinobi's side and gave Temari a one-armed hug, since she seemed to be at the verge of tears.

Shizune immediately took control of the situation; she tucked up her sleeves and went over to the Suna medics and after finding out what they knew, which was nothing besides that it was a virulent and unknown poison, recruited their help to begin Kankuro's treatment with a medical jutsu of Tsunade's invention. She gently moved the blondes away from the bed and told Temari in a kind voice that she needed not to worry, that she was sure they could help her brother survive.

They gave the medic team wide berth to maneuver around the bed, and Baki took the chance to announce the rest of the newcomers that the Kazekage wished to see them as soon as possible. Since there was nothing they could do for Kankuro except to wait, Temari nodded and the group went to the fortress-like building in the very center of the village, the Sunspire, where the Kazekage's office and the council meeting chambers were located, among other facilities of the village's government body.

Baki took them all the way to the office's doors, knocked on it and announced them. They went in, and Kakashi took the measure of his surroundings, looking for threats and escape routes and the like, out of habit mostly. Sabaku no Gaara, the Godaime Kazekage was sitting behind his desk, just finishing a document; to his left was a girl with short, light brown hair, a Suna shinobi vest, dark purple blouse, a mini-skirt and a Suna hitai-ate around her neck. To Gaara's right were two other girls; the first one dressed much like the one in the left, only with long hair in a darker shade of brown, a bandana-style Suna hitai-ate and a longer skirt the main differences their appearance, but the second girl made Kakashi do a double take. Lime-green hair, pink eyes, deeply tanned skin and a set of white tank top, mini-skirt and arm warmers over mesh top and shorts; but it was not the exotic look of the girl that drew Kakashi's attention, but the fact that she sported a Takigakure hitai-ate tied to her right arm; Taki had no treaties with Suna that he knew of, Tsunade would love to know this.

The eyes of both girls at the Kazekage's right sparkled with what Kakashi thought was anticipation, while Gaara stood and welcomed them:

-"Welcome to Sunagakure. I am grateful you arrived as quickly as you did."-

-"It was no problem, Kazekage-sama. We came as soon as possible."-

-"I understand the medic-nin that arrived with you is already seeing to my brother and Toguro-san."-

-"Yes, Kazekage-sama. Shizune is the first apprentice of our Hokage and the best poison expert our village has. She will see to your shinobi."-

Gaara nodded, and looked to Naruto steadily. Kakashi thought he saw a shadow of a smile fight its way to his lips, but he only said:

-"Baki-san, make us private if you please."-

The half-masked Suna shinobi nodded and pulled a scroll out of his vest pockets. A bit of blood and a few hand seals later, and small, inky black symbols were crawling out of the scroll and into the floor, wall and ceiling in eight different directions; while Kakashi noted idly that it seemed to be the same style of sealing Jiraiya of the Sannin used regularly. Baki stood and said:

-"The seal is complete, Kazekage-sama."-

That seemed to be the clue the dark-skinned kunoichi was waiting for, as she grinned like the cat after the mouse, and before anyone could react, she was soaring through the air, tackling Naruto in a flawlessly executed flying glomp that, in another time and place, would have brought a prideful smile to a certain purple haired Amazon warrior. Kakashi blinked twice, seeing his blonde student pinned to the ground by the green-haired kunoichi, who was planting the mother of all the hot, French-styled kisses upon the whiskered Jinchüriki. And he blinked a couple more times for good measure, when he noticed Naruto returning the kiss with equal intensity while holding the other girl by the hips.

Finally the need for air overrode the Taki kunoichi's enthusiasm, and she let go of Naruto's mouth, taking a deep breath of air, just like her "victim" did. She landed a quick peck in Naruto's cheek and said:

-"I missed you a lot, Naru-chan"-

-"I've missed you too, Fü-chan."-

The girl known as Fü stood quickly and helped Naruto up, before turning to look at the rest of the gathered people, without letting go of Naruto's hand. The other girl at the right of the Kazekage walked over to Naruto and bowed politely, saying:

-"Welcome back, Naruto-sama"-

The sun-blonde girl grinned and used her free hand to pull the brunette into a hug.

-"Did you miss me, Sari-chan?"-

That made the Suna girl blush. Then Fü grinned and mock-whispered, making sure everyone heard her words:

-"Oh, yeah, Naru-chan. Sari-chan here missed you at nights… loudly."-

Now, that upgraded Sari's blush to neon red intensities, and she hid her face in Naruto's shoulder. The other girls in the room giggled at her predicament, and even Gaara allowed himself a tiny smirk, while Kakashi stood there being caught totally flat-footed for the first time in who-knows-how-long. Baki, however, seemed either used to or impervious to the situation and cleared his throat to call on everyone's attention. Everyone returned to a semblance of professionalism even if neither Fü nor Sari let go of the portions of Naruto they had claimed as their own. Gaara sat, and began to talk:

-"As you know, last night the village was attacked by the Akatsuki organization; more specifically, two members of said organization attempted a surprise assault on the village with myself as the target."-

-"I'm glad you're alright, Gaara-nii. So, care to tell us how the battle went?"-

The Kazekage nodded to acknowledge Naruto's words, and took a moment to collect his thoughts, before taking to narrate the confrontation:

Flashback

Gaara was signing the last documents of the paperwork from the day, while Matsuri stood next to him, waiting with a patient smile for the Kazekage to finish his duties. She had worked extra hard to master the jutsu her mentor had showed her, earning the dinner he had promised her as motivation, and she intended to collect. Not that her Gaara-kun would try to sneak off of a promise, or anything, it was just that with all the tension they had been having this past weeks, both of them needed the break.

Ever since Naruto, Fü and Jiraiya of the Sannin had appeared at Gaara's doorstep with news about the Akatsuki threat, the few shinobi that were of the red-head Kazekage's full confidence had been shouldering extra duties and responsibilities, herself included. It was not the amount of the tasks assigned, per se; it was more the emotional tension of being always in the lookout, waiting for an ambush, even when in your own home. Very taxing on the nerves and after a few weeks, she was down to the limits of her endurance. Oh well, nothing that a relaxing dinner with her Gaara-kun would not fix, she was sure.

A bright, orange light accompanied by an explosion in the night ski took Matsuri out of her daydream about the stoic kage confessing his undying love to her over dinner and interrupted the very last signature said kage was writing. Both knew what the explosion meant; the color had just recently been added to the alert signals the gate guards had. Akatsuki's presence had been detected in the village, the dreaded yet expected attack from the criminal organization had come. Gaara stood, and said in his trademark emotionless tone to Matsuri:

-"I'll head out first. Go look for them and have them head to the roof, I'll meet with you there."-

He disappeared in a whirlwind of sand, while Matsuri nodded and ran out of the office, towards the guest quarters, with her eyes full of worry.

Gaara appeared on the top of the Sunspire, the tallest tower in the village that grew from the center of the government building and gave it the name. He had chosen this place to locate the enemy quickly by sending his sand eyes all over the village but he didn't need to bother, a blonde shinobi sporting the signature black-with-red-clouds cloak of the Akatsuki was flying on top of a huge white bird of a minimalistic design, making wide circles over the village and raining small white things that exploded upon landing among the village. The shinobi were scrambling for cover and evacuating the civilians of the area, but the assault relented quickly when the sand of the Kazekage's gourd flew to chase the attacker.

The Akatsuki member evaded the sand spear-like attack and turned with a grin to look at the Kazekage atop the tower; he was sporting an Iwagakure headband with a slash crossing it. He grinned and, forgetting about the people he was attacking, he headed over the Kazekage, making wide circles around him, higher even than the tower is which he stood. He laughed when he saw the Suna leader, wearing his white and green robes, sans the hat.

-"Ha ha! I see you're not a coward that hides behind his lackeys. Do you know why we are here, hmmm?"-

Gaara didn't bother to reply to the Iwa missing-nin and stood there, with crossed arms, while the sand of his gourd regrouped around him and then chased after the Akatsuki ninja, trying to catch him. It divided itself in two, three or four flows of sand that tried to maneuver the strange white bird into a favorable position, but the bird was faster and the occupant released small white birds from his hands, which crashed into the sand and exploded, delaying its advance and thwarting its efforts.

Gaara noticed the blonde pulling more of the white stuff, that looked like dough or clay, from a big bag under his cloak, and after being chewed by strange mouths placed in his hands, he launched it to the air, already shaped into the little birds. He laughed again while the new flock of dough birds made their way towards Gaara's position, forcing the sand to retreat and protect its master. The missing-nin shouted from his high perch:

-"Give it up already! You have no hope of winning! That sand of yours is no match for my art, yeah!"-

Gaara's response was to extend his arms in front of him, eyes closed in concentration, trusting his special sand to protect him, as he commanded the sand of the desert in the village and around it to obey his will. A big column of sand rose in the air, swirling like a flowing river around the young Kazekage, and its point took the form of a gigantic clawed hand, with the vein-like marks characteristic of Shukaku's manifestations; it immediately launched itself towards the Akatsuki flier, stretching thin to try and reach him, like an enormous arm made of sand.

The blonde man grinned, this fight was not going to be that boring after all, maybe he'd have the chance to make a truly beautiful masterpiece this time. He weaved his way out of the path of the titanic sand claw with practiced ease, even if he had to admit that the sand was more of a threat now that Gaara's gesticulating hands were commanding its movement directly. About half of the special sand in the Kazekage's gourd flew towards the Akatsuki member and joined the chase, becoming a spear-like shard of compacted sand, and moving considerably faster than the giant claw itself; the blonde ninja realized the desert sand posed no real threat other than making it harder from him to evade the special sand. He focused on staying away from the flying shard of sand, using strategically placed explosions to do so. He took the time to yell at his opponent:

-"Ha! I told you already, you're no match for the art of the great Deidara-sama, yeah!"-

The man that identified himself as Deidara looked down towards the Kazekage and realized that he was starting to breath heavily; the spectacular and highly intimidating column of sand was taking its toll on the young redhead, and being completely useless in payment for all the chakra he was expending on it. Seriously, one would think that a supposed kage should have realized by now that the strategy was not working. Nevertheless, the blonde decided to take advantage of it, and prepare the next stage of his plan.

But before he could do that, his scope-enhanced left eye, highly trained to counter genjutsu realized something was not all that well with the Kazekage. He quickly realized that a genjutsu was at work here, and with a shout of "kai", he dispelled the technique's influence on him. Predictably, the hold of the technique over his senses disappeared, and he wondered at the utility of the illusion. Where the Kazekage was standing alone atop the tower, breathing heavily from expending so much chakra so quickly, in reality he was not breathing heavily at all, but he was in the exact same position the genjutsu showed him to be. And next to him stood two cute brunette girls, a short haired one whirling a jōhyō as if waiting for him to approach, and the long haired one holding her hands in a bird hand seal, likely the one that threw the genjutsu at him, eyes closed and the face frowning with concentration.

Before Deidara could analyze the reasons to use a genjutsu that didn't concealed his opponent in any meaningful way, he felt a presence behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see a lime-green haired girl, with pink eyes boring into him, and he understood immediately what had happened, he was not a member of Akatsuki for his good looks after all. The genjutsu was not meant to conceal the Kazekage but this girl, who had likely used the giant column of sand to reach him up there. And before his body, let alone his mind could react, the impossibly fast, lightning coated fist of the tanned girl unleashed a volley of devastating punches on him at the yell of "Raiton: Heaven's Smashing Fist".

The attack not only broke some of his bones, but shocked and burned him, making him fall from the clay bird while his body convulsed uncontrollably, directly into the shard of sand that expanded like a net to catch him and collapsed around him, crushing the Akatsuki ninja before he could recover and defend himself.

As it was, the moment the Iwa missing-nin was crushed under the sand, the white bird he had been riding into combat spiraled out of control, throwing the Taki kunoichi out of its back, which in retrospective might have saved her from serious injury, for the chakra that powered the bird went out of control and exploded, thankfully before it had fallen too much towards the village. Fü was thrown away from the force of the explosion, and thanks to Gaara's sand chasing after her and cutting her fall short, came out of the fight with nothing more than a slightly singed body.

The sand deposited the girl atop the tower with Gaara, Matsuri and Sari, while the Kazekage returned the sand of the giant claw back to the desert, and the special sand flowed back to his gourd, leaving him a ring with the kanji for "blue" on it.

-"It is done? We won?"-

Sari's hopeful eyes meet with Gaara's stoic gaze when he answered:

-"We know the Akatsuki travel in pairs. The other one must be around."-

An explosion resonated from the direction of the village's gate, and Fü grinned in that way that told Gaara she was going to be reckless again:

-"You killed this one, Gaara-kun. Next one is mine!"-

A quick sequence of hand seals and the pink-eyed girl whispered "Jinton: Flash Step Technique". Immediately after, she vanished from the tower, using the huge increase in speed of her bloodline's technique to make her way to the entrance of the village. The Kazekage mumbled something about exasperating, reckless women and said to Sari and Matsuri that they should head for the shelters, before disappearing with a sand Shunshin. Both girls looked at each other, nodded and jumped off the tower heading, predictably, towards the entrance of the village instead of the shelters.

End Flashback

-"By the time I arrived at the entrance area of the village, the other Akatsuki member had already fled, leaving behind two dead men and one poisoned. Baki was tending to the wounded and Kankuro gave chase, despite being ordered otherwise."-

Gaara finished his tale that had been spiced with small comments from the other participants. Then Fü added:

-"I went after them, but by the time I managed to catch up, Kankuro-san had already been poisoned. So I decided to bring him back to the village instead of risking lone pursuit."-

-"And it was well done, because the Akatsuki member that got away was none other than Akasuna no Sasori, the greatest puppetmaster ever to come from the Suna shinobi ranks. I was only lucky he hadn't poisoned me too before Gaara-sama and his team took down his partner, and he decided his goal was no longer achievable."-

Baki answered and both Naruto and Kakashi nodded in acknowledgement; the Suna jönin's intent on transmitting the danger represented by the missing-nin not lost to anyone. The Kazekage's voice filled the silence again:

-"Naruto, we will not be able to choose the battleground. They know full well that we will not forsake our village's security, and they will take advantage of that. Besides, Fü-san's presence has been revealed, and I doubt they will underestimate us yet again. We will need to prepare."-

Naruto locked gazes with her fellow Jinchüriki and nodded.

-"I've got some ideas. Let me tell you about it"-

In a damp, dark cave, somewhere away from prying eyes, a giant stone statue representing a nine-eyed humanoid head, neck and shoulders was resting against the deep end of the cave. In front of the statue, two stone hands in the same scale of the statue rose from the floor, fingers outstretched towards the stalactite-filled ceiling. On seven of those fingers, vaguely humanoid figures could be seen standing.

Vaguely humanoid because the heavy cloaks they were wearing allowed little beyond a head to be discerned, fact that didn't actually confirmed a humanoid underneath the cloak if you took into account the flytrap-like protrusions around one's head, or the hunched shape of a second one or the beady eyes and shark-like teeth of a third; well, the point was open to discussion. And the fact that six of the seven shapes were visible in a kaleidoscopic array of colors didn't help either.

They were, or rather, had been, humans, all of them. But I digress. The point is that only the hunchback figure of the group was of a normal color, black cloak with red clouds in it and a big stray hat with bells hanging around the borders, covering the face from view. Only two of the multicolored figures wore the hat, however, and one of them, the one with concentric circles in the pupils spoke in an authoritative tone:

-"Where is the Ichibi? And Deidara, for that matter"-

The hunchback answered in a raspy voice that bordered on hostile:

-"Deidara is dead. He was defeated and I judged too risky to try and take the Ichibi with all the village roused and ready."-

A slightly arched eyebrow was the only reaction from the man that had spoken first. Before anyone else could express their opinion about this bit of news, one way or another, he spoke again:

-"Care to explain to me how that happened?"-

-"Suna was warned. The Nanabi girl that dropped off the grid after giving the slip to Hidan in Taki no Kuni was there, it was her that took Deidara by surprise when he was fighting the Ichibi, and most likely is the one that warned the Kazekage. Not even Suna's council was aware of her presence within the village."-

The ring-eyed man frowned a little, and said:

-"That is curious. Taki has never been in particularly good terms with Suna. Why would they send their jinchüriki there?"-

He made a point to look at the… man, with the flytrap protuberances and he replied:

-"The leader of Takigakure has listed the jinchüriki as a missing-nin, and no one within the village had know of her whereabouts for a time now, not than most of them cared anyway."-

The ring-eyed man nodded and spoke again:

-"So the girl leaves her village and seeks refuge somewhere where she can use her information about us to buy it."-

The hunchback nodded and said:

-"Could be. It is pretty common knowledge that the Kazekage is a jinchüriki, and while not allies exactly, Taki and Suna have never been hostile to one another either."-

-"Then we will have to treat Suna with the same considerations we took Kirigakure. What about Deidara's ring?"-

The flytrap-man said:

-"The Kazekage has it. I will recover it as soon as possible"-

-"Good. We're two rings short already, and we can't afford to lose more. Sasori; you will keep Suna and the vessels under close watch while you wait for reinforcements to arrive and then you all will move to take both jinchüriki."-

The hunchback named Sasori nodded and then added:

-"There is a problem. Not 24 hours after our attack, the Kyübi jinchüriki showed up with a jönin team in tow. It is possible that Konoha will try to intervene if we make an assault to Suna like we did the Kiri operation."-

Then another of the figures spoke, this one's only distinctive feature a slashed Konoha headband.

-"The Kyübi jinchüriki and Konoha are going to be busy tracking down Orochimaru during the next few months. We can wait for them go have their hands full with the Sannin before moving against Suna."-

The ring-eyed man nodded, considering the options.

-"Yes, we will proceed with that plan. Once we have confirmation the conflict between Konoha and Orochimaru's forces has come to a head, we will move against Suna as planned."-

The multicolored figures disappeared quickly one after another, and only the hunchback remained. He jumped off the stone finger and began to walk towards the exit of the cave, his mind already going over scenarios and their pros and contras. A fleeting thought crossed his head about mourning somehow the passing of his partner, but it was dismissed as quickly as it came. It was just plain stupid for a missing-nin to think something along those lines. It was not like if the blonde Iwa-nin had been his friend, after all.

Since she had turned sixteen, Ichiraku Ayame usually went to shop for the supplies for the ramen stand of her family while her father, Teuchi, remained in the stand serving customers. She had always managed to get a little discount on the stuff, and besides, she liked the change of pace from the ramen cooking of everyday. Not that she disliked her job, mind you, the ramen stand was her life as it had been her fathers and her late mothers, and she loved it. But a little change of scenery was always welcome.

Since the day when Naruto had come back to the village and revealed her condition to her friends, the banning law on the whole affair had been lifted, and that had had some unexpected results, at least from her part. Namely, the veiled hostility that many of the villagers had displayed towards Naruto was now out in the open, and it had begun to affect the people that usually associated with him… her. Whispers of "demon-lover" and other less savory comments accompanied with a sharp increase in prices had stunned the young woman when she first encountered them.

At one point, four older men, reeking of sake and unwashed filth had attempted a more direct way to show their displeasure that the Ichiraku ramen stand served the "blonde demon whore", as they had begun to call Naruto lately. They had cut Ayame's path in one of the least transited alleys of the market district, and had made several lewd comments to her, things that made her skin crawl just to remember them. They had backed her to a wall and when she was about to yell for somebody's help, just in case they planned to come through with their threats despite being in the light of day, drunk as they were, a big hand had come to rest in her slim shoulder.

Ichiraku Ayame would never have thought it, but Akimichi Chöji was a fearsome sight to behold when angry. The chubby teenager was a regular visitor of the ramen stand, for even if his favorite food was Korean barbeque, he loved good food, and Ichiraku ramen was some of the best food there is. During all those visits, Ayame had seen the Akimichi heir as a good-hearted, polite boy with the characteristic healthy appetite characteristic of his family and had never given much though about him being a ninja, someone who is trained to take lives when ordered.

But now, Chöji, nice sweet Chöji, was standing behind her, one foot taller than and twice as wide as Ayame, clad in his family battle armor, with eyes narrowed with anger, one surprisingly gentle hand pulling her from the shoulder to get her behind him and the other hand clenching in a fist that could crush a human head like chicken egg. Suddenly, she could plainly see just why the Akimichi family was respected and acknowledged as being only below the Hyüga in terms of taijutsu prowess. Not even the cute swirls in his cheeks looked cute anymore.

Two or three harshly spoken words later, the four drunkards were scrambling away from the brown-haired boy, and Ayame could swear at least one of them would need a change of pants after this particular incident. Not that they didn't need a bath before, mind. Chöji then released a deep breath, and turned to help Ayame with the bags she was carrying. He walked with her all the way to the ramen stand, and did stop for a free meal, at her insistence; it was the least she could do for her impromptu savior. She bristled a little after he left; for she found that the chubby boy had left the money of the ramen bowls hidden under one of the empty dished and left; and with a good tip to boot.

Chöji, for his part, went to one of his favorite spots after leaving the Ichiraku girl safe with her father, where he knew his best friend was fully engaged in his favorite activity. Chöji sat next to Shikamaru, opened a bag of chips and began munching. He offered his pal some of the chips, and went back to munching, and looking at the clouds, too.

For a while, both teens just sat there, under the shadow of the shed, watching the clouds. Or at least Chöji was, for Shikamaru had his eyes closed, and anyone would bet he had gone to sleep on the spot. One bag of potato chips went down for the count, and then another, and the third was well on its way when, finally, something changed in the scene on the roof. Two other figures landed on the roof and went to sit beneath the shadow of the shed.

Hyüga Neji, young prodigy of the branch family of the Hyüga clan activated his family's doujutsu, the Byakugan, and after a few seconds of searching for something, he nodded, satisfied. His companion, his teammate and budding weapon mistress, Higurashi Tenten, let go of a breath she didn't knew she was holding, and turned to look at Chöji and Shikamaru, that had given no sign of acknowledging their arrival beyond Chöji's nod and wordless offer of his chips. The kunoichi did take one, while the Hyüga just sat there with eyes closed, seeming lost in meditation much as Shikamaru seemed lost in the land of dreams. Then, Chöji spoke:

-"It is getting worse. The rumors are getting more outrageous than ever. Ichiraku-san was almost attacked today."-

Neji just nodded, while Tenten said:

-"We've confirmed some of us are being shadowed. As far as we can tell, Lee, Chöji-san, Ino-san, Sakura-san, you Shikamaru, me and Hinata when she is away from the clan compound."-

Shikamaru yawned and said:

-"But not all of us"-

This time, it was Neji who spoke:

-"No; this "shadows" we've got seem to respect the enhanced senses of team eight and my own. Maybe they are underestimating Hinata-sama's skill with the Byakugan or maybe they dare not leave her out of their sight despite the risks; it would seem everyone but Uzumaki herself know about her feelings"-

Shikamaru nodded.

-"I guessed as much. It is troublesome, but I suppose we can't help but dig a little into this matter, see what we can find underneath. We will need to be careful about this, whoever the hand that pulls the strings is; we cannot tip it we are unto him, or her. Any idea when team eight will be back from their mission?

-"I hear they were scheduled to be back before the end of the week. Hiashi-sama scheduled a couple clan meetings with Hinata-sama's presence."-

-"Well, then; we will see what to do when they are back, hopefully Naruto herself will be back by then. In the meantime, we could do well to keep an eye over the Ichirakus and those workers from Nami no Kuni that are working for Naruto, just to be on the safe side."-

Everybody nodded, and all of them turned their sight up, to look at the few lazy, fluffy white clouds hanging around the otherwise spotless blue sky. The only voice heard afterwards was Chöji's chuckling one, mumbling something about a "Yamanaka's prophetic phrase about troublesome blondes". And a shudder from Shikamaru that almost made a sound by itself

Hello there, fourth chapter here. A bit rushed in the end as always, and unbeta'ed, again, as always. Hope you like it.

Waaaaa!

Raiton: Heaven's Smashing Fist: The hands of the user become charged with lightning chakra. Unlike chidori, there is no penetrating force generated by the attack, just the electricity that discharges unto the target upon contact. Works well enough to shock and stun opponents, however.

Jinton: Flash Step Technique: Jinton means "Swift Release" and it appeared in one of the movies, somewhere. The chakras involved are unknown so I'm arbitrarily making the Nanabi give Fü the bloodline. Isn't it great how fanfiction works? =P. As for the jutsu itself, it increases the speed of the user in short bursts, making it akin to a glorified Shunshin no Jutsu.

Ichibi: One-tailed demon, a tanuki, sealed inside Sabaku no Gaara.

Nanabi: Seven tailed kabutomushi (demon horn beetle) sealed inside the Takigakure girl known as Fü.

Kirigakure: Village hidden in the mist. One of the five great ninja villages, it is somewhere within Mizu no Kuni territory.

Taki no Kuni: Land of Waterfalls, country allied with Hi no Kuni. Roughly square in shape, it borders south to Hi no Kuni, west to Tsuchi no Kuni and east to an unnamed country I've called Tani no Kuni (Land of Valleys). It has coast to the north.