Here I am

Day 2 of travelling. Part 2. Roughly Noon,

By the second day Naruto was already sick of pretending to be Kiba, the only benefit was that Hinata didn't faint around him like she usually would; she laughed with him… even played pranks on him. So that's the way she is with her close friends. He thought it was weird, and gathered that the only people that saw her like this would be her team. From what she had told him about her family, he doubted they even knew her, He never knew she had such a bad home life. She was constantly pointed out as incompetent and shunned by everyone else. Im glad im not an heir, it would be so much pressure. However, he was glad that she was still able to laugh and smile with her friends, and at the moment he had wished that he had taken more time out of his life for her over the last couple of years, he knew everyone pretty well (except shino). Mainly because they are all loud, confident and don't mind telling Naruto when he is wrong. Hinata however, had never said anything that even insinuated towards Naruto being an idiot. Which surprised him, she is so smart. He had watched her find most of the food and water today, Naruto felt kind of useless.

They all sat around a small clearing eating there fruit that the indigo girl had found. She managed to use her Byakugan to hunt down an apple tree, along with some other fruits. The Kyuubi-container wasn't used to eating so well, and his stomach had stopped yelling at him so often for all of the crap he ate. He needed his energy anyway, and fruit was a much better source for that compared to Ramen.

"Kakashi-sensei, how many more days do you reckon it will take before we make it to our destination?" he directed to the pervert who was now re-reading the first of Jiraiya's 'Research'.

"Ah… We are moving a lot quicker than expected… maybe two more days?" he looked over to Kurenai and received a nod, "Yeah… two more days"

"Excuse me, Kakashi-sensei, how long are we staying here for?"

Kakashi's face grew full of surprise and he looked over to the Hyuuga who directed the question at him. "We should leave as soon as we can, we shouldn't stay in one place too long"

Hinata just gave him a slight nod and begun to pack up her belongings.

Naruto scoffed down the remainder of his apple and threw the core off into the forest before following Hinatas example.

When the two younger Ninja's left Kurenai turned to Kakashi and gave him a small smile, "I've never seen her talk so much to another Jounin, you should be impressed Kakashi"

She waited thirty seconds for a response and turned over to him to see Kakashi intently staring into his book. Kurenai sighed, grabbed his book and smacked it over his head, "You dirty pervert I was talking to you!"

"Huh? Oh yeah, Hinata, I see what you mean… Imagine if she knew who she was really talking to? Haha, we would be carrying her the entire journey."

Kurenai was worried about what Hinatas reaction will be once she finds out that she was with Naruto this entire time. She had been acting very friendly with him, walking next to him, talking with him, since they started walking this morning. Poor girl is going to have a heart attack when she finds out… she will probably kill me for not telling her. Everyone (But Naruto) had known about her crush for the fox-like boy for years, maybe this is her chance to get over her inability to hold a conversation, or sentence even, with him.

Hinata and Naruto led the travel today, standing at the front of their team. Naruto glanced over towards her and back at the road in front of him, Ah I wonder how long I can keep this up he was having troubles and it was only the second day. So far their journey had been very pleasant; they hadn't run into any bandits or rogue ninja's. It was odd, almost too nice.

Naruto instantly decided he had been too relaxed and it was only the second day of the trip. He heard yelling coming from further up in the road and it sounded like civilians. They had been nearing a town and it sounded like something was going down. He looked back at Kakashi and his sensei signalled for them to begin travel within the trees. They all leapt up to the highest branch and began to increase their speed of travel. Quickly leaping from one branch to another, feeling the hard wood change consistency below his feet, Naruto had a bad feeling about the town ahead.

"Hinata! Check what is ahead of us!" Shouted out Kurenai.

Hinata whispered to herself "Byakugan"

It was about another kilometre up the road, a group of bandits surrounded every citizen in the town within the town square, holding the children up at the front, swords rested against their necks. Hinata was shocked at the scene, "Civilians surrounded by what I can assume are bandits"

As they edged closer Naruto couldn't wait for a fight, it had been a while since he had to fight against a real enemy (Considering Tsunade kept him locked inside the village as of late).

Finally the view was upon him, so many women forced to the ground, being pillaged in front of their own husbands. The men's hands were tied behind their back and a piece of fabric was placed over their mouth and each man had a bandit behind him forcing his head to watch the scene.

The bandit leader stepped throughout the scene, it was obvious he was the superior one, every other bandit wore bland black clothes but this particular bandit had a red sash across his front and a long scar on his left cheek that went from the back of his ear down towards the middle of his collar bones. He walked over to one of the women and ran his sword from her skirt up to the entrance of her blouse, with one movement he cut through the buttons and her shirt flew open.

"This will be an example to all of you! For not managing to keep up with our taxes… next time you don't pay up, we will get rid of another child… and ravish your women again!" he lent down to grab the ladies cheek, grazing her skin with his dirty hands, and moving down to her collar. Before he was able to do this smoke filled the area around him and he was blinded.

He felt a tap on his shoulder. Turning around he waved his sword flaringly towards the movement.

"Over here" whispered a voice.

There was a tug on his chest and then the smoke began to clear. The bandit looked down and saw his red slash missing.

"Over here douchebag" Naruto insulted the bandit by placing the sash on himself.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing kid?" The bandit was enraged and began to walk towards Naruto, pointing over to his bandits to do the same. He barely made it two steps before the boy in front of him dispersed into a cloud of white smoke and out of what seemed like nowhere, the team of leaf Shinobi appeared and started taking out the bandits, one by one.

Naruto grabbed his kunai and in-between dodging, dealt severe damage to each Bandit. He dodged and slashed and flew himself under one man's legs and swept the legs out of under another man. He flipped himself over one man and grabbed onto the bandits shoulders before bringing his force back down to the ground and throwing the guy over his head and into another group of men. Hinata stood in her family's legendary stance and continued to slam her palm into man after man rendering their body useless. Naruto looked over to her and was in awe of her fluid movements before he felt impact against his face. He only had to look at the scar on the man's cheek once before he realised that it was the main bandit.

"You shouldn't let your guard down to perv on your team mate, you little shit."

"You shouldn't be such an arrogant bastard" retorted Naruto.

Naruto ran at the man, pulling his hand back and shaping it into a fist, he aimed for the bandits face. However, before he went in to make contact he noticed the thin sword being moved towards his own chest, he pulled back mid punch and ducked below the sword before tackling his enemy to the ground. The bandit slid back a few meters but quickly regained his balance before charging at Naruto, His sword made contact and pierced Naruto's stomach before dissipating yet again. He swiftly turned around to block Naruto's next punch, grabbing onto Naruto's arm heavily. Naruto threw his other hand towards the man's abdomen but the scarred man caught this as well.

The bandit unsheathed his other sword and placed it against Naruto's heart, "Goodbye," The bandit whispered.

Before the leader knew it, he felt a pain in his chest, looking down he saw nothing. Troubling himself he turned around and saw a small pale palm come once more at him, and that was the last thing he remembered.

The battlefield was now quiet. Kakashi and Kurenai began untying the men who ran quickly towards their wives and Naruto and Hinata helped the children. Before they could leave however, they tied up all of the bandits and sent a message towards Konoha to tell Tsunade that they could come and pick up the bandits and pay them all appropriately for getting rid of the problem.

The town's people were amazed that the four ninja had taken on that many bandits, but before they were able to thank the young Ninja's, they were gone… as if they were never even there in the first place.

Naruto didn't get why they had to leave straight away, but Kakashi attempted to make him see that if they stayed in the town for too long they could lead the Akatsuki in the general directions (incase they had caught on that Naruto wasn't in the village anymore. Plus they had more important things to do, they had to find a secluded area to set up camp for the night and luckily for Naruto every second day they set up camp near some hot springs so that each person could take a bath and clean off (Lucky for Naruto as he had worked up a sweat and was now sent to the back of the travel formation so that the body odour would not bother anyone else. As the day began to end the team decided to settle down next to a clearing that hid a water source. The first to bath was Kurenai; she was quick, but surely clean. Kakashi went next, sneaking his orange book in with him, no one wanted to know what he planned to do with that. Hinata let Naruto go first. He argued with her at this as he didn't mind waiting.

"Kiba-kun it's okay! You smell a lot more than I do, I will go last, and honestly im doing our sensei's a favour!" she giggled at him as he walked off towards his destination in order to bathe.

Naruto undressed himself quickly and jumped into the spring, it felt so good against his skin. He began to brush over his body and clean the dirt off his arms and legs. When he was done cleaning he couldn't help but just relax in the water, it was most probably the best bath he would ever have in his life, just the right temperature and pressure of bubbles. Time flew by and he didn't even notice, his team did notice this and sent Hinata after him.

"Kiba-kun! You're hogging the water! Kurenai sensei said to get out, your dinner is ready!"

Naruto heard her coming from the short distance and jumped out of the water, before grabbing his towel and quickly covering himself.

Hinata appeared through the bushes, when she noticed Kiba was still in his towel she blushed, turned around quickly and muttered something to him.

"Sorry, what did you say Hinata-chan?"

"Uh… your dinner is ready"

Naruto grabbed his clothes and walked past her, "Okay, your turn, take your time, I'll hold them off if they wonder why you're taking so long"

Naruto owed her that atleast for making her stay in her sweaty clothes all day. When the boy got back to the camp, Kurenai had already retreated to her tent and Kakashi sat around the fire alone, reading his book (as always) except he looked up at Naruto and pointed to a towel handing up over Hinata and Kurenai's tent, "Hinata forgot her towel, will you take it to her?"

"Can I get dressed first?" Naruto explained, pulling his undies up under his towel.

"Just do it"

Naruto stomped over to the towel and back off into the woods in only his undies and towel.

What he walked into however, he did not expect.

There sat Hinata… at the edge of the water, her feet and legs dangling into the water, adjusting her body to the temperature. Her figure was sculptured so beautifully, from the bend of her back to the curves of her hips. He could see her figure so perfectly; Naruto couldn't help but let a slight blush cross his cheeks. He had never seen a woman he knew naked before him (without it being some of Jiraiya's Research) he could see the side of her breast and oh how he longed to see the rest of her body.

He didn't know what to do, but slowly backed into the forest until he could no longer see the perfect girl. It took him more than a second to focus his mind on to what his current task was.

"Uh… Hinata-chan! You left your towel at the campsite!" He yelled out and eagerly waited to hear a splash of the water. He heard the splash not long after he finished his sentence and heard the girl yell back out to him, "Ah Kiba-kun, can you just turn around and hang it on the tree near the pool?

Naruto complied with her request and slowly backed into the area before hanging up her towel and fumbling to say goodnight before running out and back to the campsite.

Kakashi looked at him as he entered, grabbing his clothes quickly and returning to his tent.

The grey-haired Jounin looked up from his book and a smile lit up his face, "Ah so much more amusing then my book" he giggled to himself and returned back to the said object.

Hinata didn't spend that night with Naruto playing cards; instead she lay awake in her tent awkwardly thinking about forgetting her towel.

I can't believe I forgot it…

The end

A/N Okay, so this chapter is longer than normal, and I will try to increase the length as I go until I get it at a length that I like. R&R :D