My my! It's going so well! I've been taking a couple days break from writing due to certain events (the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows for instance! Whoot whoot! And no, I won't give away any spoilers! All I'm saying is that it's very, very good, lives up to the hype, and I cried about six times during the course of the book.) But I have finished reading it and now I'm back (not that you actually noticed that I was gone, except for maybe TakeTenEyes)! Anyways, here we go!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, but I might be a superhero! See if you can guess my secret identity!
One good thing about being a man is that men don't have to talk to each other.
-Peter Cocotas
Chapter Nine
Talking
Friday, February 2. 2007
Washington D.C. 10:40 a.m.
Airport.
Tori and Lee stood at the airport entrance waiting for a cab to come. Getting off the plane had been relatively painless since they didn't have to go through the baggage claim. Tori had managed to fall asleep on the plane for the first time in her life. She was now feeling much better.
Lee stood beside her silently. He had been sweet the whole ride, letting her sleep and not mentioning anything having to do with yen. He had been very quiet and hadn't done anything else that could be considered a possible act of terrorism. Once they arrived at the airport, Lee immediately called the taxi service. Now as the taxi pulled up to the curb, Lee chivalrously helped her in. He whispered an address to the driver who raised his eyebrows in surprise, but didn't comment on the location. As they pulled out of the departure area, the driver started chattering animatedly. But somehow the noise felt awkward to Tori. Lee seemed distant, as he had since they got on the plane. Was it because of her crying? Did she get snot on his jumpsuit? Was he embarrassed? Damn men and their feelings or apparent lack of them! But Tori didn't have long to stew over this. The ride only lasted about ten minutes. Lee began to pull out the Hello Kitty pouch again, but Tori stopped him. "I have enough to pay for the cab," She forked over the necessary payment, and climbed out after Lee. Only once the cab had left did she get a chance to look around.
"Where are we?"
The area that they were in was completely deserted. Graffiti covered the walls. The only sign of life was a single cat. Lee began to walk towards a phone booth. Tori raced to keep up with him. "You first, Victoria-chan," he said as he motioned for her to step inside. The inside of the booth was completely ordinary. Nothing marked it as special in any way except for the fact that it was in such a remote area. Lee hopped in after her. He pulled out the Hello Kitty pouch out again, and before Tori could stop him, put five-yen in the coin slot.
"Lee, what are you doing? You'll jam the phone!"
Lee grinned at her. "No I will not, Victoria-chan. This was set up by Tsunade-sama."
"What?"
Before Tori could continue, something began to happen to the phone booth. Before, Tori and Lee had barely managed to fit in the phone booth at the same time. Now the walls were slowly expanding to accommodate the glowing, translucent circle that was growing inside of he booth. When it grew to the height of a doorframe it stopped. "What is this?" Lee smiled again and took her by the hand. He gently touched the surface of the glowing disc with his hand. The surface trembled like water and began to ripple into green. "Come, Victoria-chan!" With that he led her through the circle into nowhere.
February, 3, 2007
Konoha, 1:00 a.m.
A forest
And suddenly they were in the middle of a huge forest. The trees were bigger than redwoods; Lee was just barely taller than a nearby root. Amid the roots stood a phone booth identical to the one that they had just exited in D.C. It was dark here, but somehow the darkness still felt safe. "Where are we?" Tori asked in wonder. "This is the most gorgeous forest I've ever been in!" Lee smiled at her reaction. "We are in the forest just outside of Konoha. We will have to walk a little bit to get to the city."
"I don't mind!" said Tori excitedly. "This place is amazing!"
They began to walk toward Konoha, talking as they walked. All awkwardness was gone now.
"So why did Tsunade set up the portal in a phone booth? It really doesn't seem like her type of thing to do."
"Well, a few years ago Gai-sensei found some old Superman comic books,"
"Superman?"
"Hai! He loves them. That is how he got the idea for his youthful jumpsuit! He let Tsunade-sama borrow one a few weeks ago. She really likes them! That is how she came up with an idea for the telephone booth."
"Does anyone else in Konoha like Superman?"
"No. Neji in particular hates it."
Tori giggled. "So why does Neji use that Hello Kitty bag anyways?"
Lee laughed. "He says that Hinata-chan gave it to him for his birthday and that family protocol says that he has to carry it. But Tenten-chan says that she saw him buying it at a gift shop. He thinks it is cute!"
"That is so funny! I would never expect Neji to do that! Do you tease him about it?"
Lee looked shocked. "Of course not! You should not make fun of your teammates no matter how foolish and girly they act! Besides, pink kitties are youthful!"
Tori went into hysterics.
After walking just a bit farther they arrived at the gates of Konoha. Lee led Tori through the quiet streets until they arrived at the Hokage's office. They went up the darkened stairs toward the door at the top. Lee opened the door into the dimly lit room and allowed Tori to walk in ahead of him. Paige was sitting at the desk with her head resting on the wood. "Paige!" shrieked Tori. Paige sat up slowly; blinking because of the light that Lee had flipped on. "Tori! You're here…"
"You look tired! Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. I just haven't slept much in the last three days. Tsunade has been doing tests on me."
"What kind of tests?"
"Oh, just chakra stuff. She's been doing some research. Basically I've been having mini-lessons on chakra manipulation. I've gotten pretty good at it."
"Of course. You're always good at that kind of thing."
"She's also been asking me questions about you."
"What kind of questions?"
"Just stuff like when we met and how long we've been friends. She wanted to know if I could remember when this stuff started happening."
Tori rolled her eyes and said sarcastically, "I'm sure that worked out very well, what with that fabulous long term memory of yours."
"Yeah, Tsunade's been rather frustrated about that. She's been questioning me forever. She finally just told me to write down my memories."
"And you fell asleep?"
"Yep. Our time I usually wake up around now. She told me to do this around five this afternoon. And since five is three a.m. our time I fell asleep about twenty minutes later."
Tori laughed, "No shinobi is a match for your sleeping habits!"
Paige smiled. "So when did you get here?"
"About twenty minutes ago. We used a telephone booth portal."
"Who's we?"
Lee stepped forward. "Hello again, Paige-chan. If you do not mind I need to go get some sleep. My team is going to be training tomorrow and I cannot beat my rival Neji-kun if I do not rest."
"That's fine Lee," said Paige, "see you later."
"Goodbye, Victoria-chan! I will see you tomorrow!"
After Lee left, Paige turned to Tori. "So Lee came to get you. That must have been fun."
Tori groaned. "Oh it was," She began to tell Paige the story of the last couple hours.
"So you must have gotten to the airport around the same time that I fell asleep. Go on,"
When Tori finished, Paige began laughing hysterically. "That sounds like fun! It's your dream day; acting "youthful" with Lee!"
"Stop it! My dream day with Lee didn't involve him sending the airport into code orange and every girl above age thirteen checking him out!"
Paige smiled. "It's still pretty funny."
"Stop making me laugh!"
"Okie dokie! Fire truck!"
Tori started laughing again. "I said stop!" Paige smiled until Tori stopped. "So," said Tori as she caught her breath, "tomorrow, or technically today, we are going to explore the great city of Konoha!"
"That sounds great! I haven't met anyone yet except for Tsunade, Naruto, Tenten, Neji, and Lee. We can meet everyone!"
"Until then, why don't you fill me in on what's going on."
The dark got lighter as the two girls talked the night away.
Well, that was chapter… is it nine now? That's the longest story that I've written in the history of my writing stories! Yay! So, thanks to last chapters reviewers. And sorry, I know that this chapter was a little bit shorter than usual (actually a lot shorter. About 500 words shorter). But for the good of the story, I think that this works out better. Chapter ten will be coming soon!
