Chapter Ten
Naruko aged 14
Naruko came to awareness slowly, the fog of sleep fading as the smile on her face grew with the gentle ministrations of Shikamaru kissing his way around her neck, slowly lifting his lips to the shell of her ear and whispering 'good morning.'
She stretched, limbs bending back like a cat, and reached up to capture his lips with her own, Shikamaru groaning as his simple morning kisses became more heated and he reluctantly pulled back.
"I'm going to be late if I don't get going," he groused, sitting up quickly as his beautiful blonde pouted as she too sat up. "This morning I get to meet my new Jounin Sensei. It'll be good to see Chouji more often. With all our missions out of the Village lately, I never get the time."
"Eh? That time already? That means Sasuke-chan's graduated too doesn't it? Aw! He's growing up so fast!" Shikamaru rolled his eyes at her train of thought and got up, preparing for the day, putting on a fresh set of clothes along with his chuunin vest.
Naruko jumped up and scrambled into a pair of dark pants, a dark halter top that exposed a tantalizing sliver of her midriff, underneath a 3/4 orange top; a top that, in his opinion, only served to emphasize her growing chest. Not that he was complaining.
Fixing her long, blonde hair up into twin ponytails on either side of her head and tying her Hitai-ate to her forehead, she added her finishing touches by adding a tiny smear of gloss to her full, pink lips; most of which she left behind on his lips only moments later, before they both headed down the stairs to breakfast.
After she and Shikamaru parted ways this morning, Naruko wasn't really sure what to do today. Jiraiya was out of the village once again, and she had only gotten back from a mission yesterday, so, that plan was out too. Especially since, officially her team, effective today, was disbanded, allowing Shikamaru to join his new team mates for the new Ino-Shika-Chou.
She supposed she could track down her wayward outoto, Sasuke, and tease his new team. He still had problems accepting her, and her help; But over the years, he seemed to have accepted that she was never going to leave him alone.
It still infuriated him that she had made genin, and then chuunin, before him. So, that was always a fun thing to tease him with. She even had sparring matches with him occasionally, she always won, but he made her work like a dog for every win. Only her superior speed and natural stamina really allowing her to win; Sasuke was a real taijutsu monster. Of course any time they sparred with the use of ninjutsu she won hands down. Even with Sasuke's Katon jutsu's, he was no match for her; the fox in her gut having wells of chakra for her to draw on, along with her own vast reserves.
Her plans for the day decided, Naruko started her search at the training grounds. She figured that'd be the best place to start.
It didn't actually take long to find Sasuke, she crept around the training ground silently, observing his team mates.
Sasuke was standing near the center of the clearing and looked to be brooding again, on his left stood a boy, seeming around the same age. He had black hair and extremely pale skin, dark pants and a dark shirt that exposed his midriff. Strapped to his back was a tanto, he wore his Hitai-ate on his forehead and a creepy smile on his face.
On Sasuke's right, his third team mate looked quite different then her darkly clothed team. She had long pink hair, her hitai-ate tied like a headband. She wore dark shorts and a red dress-thing. She also seemed to be making googly-eyes at the Uchiha. Naruko scoffed, a fangirl; if ever Naruko hated anything it was fangirls. Hopefully the pinkette would snap out of that mentality soon enough; girls like that gave serious kunoichi a bad name.
She was curious why their sensei didn't seem to be anywhere in sight, but oh well. Deciding she had seen enough she strode into the clearing, noticing with slight surprise that both boys noticed her a second before she made her presence known. Not too shabby, she thought.
"Ohayo, Sasuke-chan!" She noticed his grimace at the nickname, and smiled wide, "Aren't you going to introduce your Onee-san to your team mates?" she said sweetly.
She came to a stop in front of the young Uchiha and poked him in the forehead, much like she saw Him do years before. He scoffed, "They aren't mute," he muttered.
The blonde smiled again, and glanced at his male team mate, raising an eyebrow. "Sai." Said he, smiling another creepy smile.
The pinkette, at this point seemed to be at her boiling point. Naruko looked over at her, sizing her up once again. A teasing smile in place now, "And you are?" she asked in what she thought was definitely not a condescending manner.
"I'm Haruno Sakura!" the girl all but shouted, and then, "How dare you make fun of Sasuke-kun!?"
Naruko outright laughed at that, turning away from the fangirl. "Really, Sasuke?" she asked teasingly. "You're fan base just gets more ridiculous as the years go by." she chided.
Sasuke actually rolled his eyes at that. "Did you come here for a spar?" he asked
"No, I really just wanted to meet your team. Where is your Sensei?"
"LATE," the fangirl piped in, rather loudly, in Naruko's opinion. She raised a delicate eyebrow once again, and glanced back to Sasuke.
"Who is your Sensei?" she asked.
"Hatake Kakashi," Never one of many words, that Uchiha.
"Hm, I've heard of him, never met him before though. Heard he's a real lazy guy, though. What are you supposed to be doing today?"
Sai, standing quietly, chose this opportunity to speak, "Kakashi-Sensei said yesterday, that we aren't true genin as yet, and told us he was going to test us in survival training today."
"Ah, ouch," the blonde added sympathetically. "Well, I guess I'll leave you to it, then. I'll come by and visit you later, Sasuke-chan, you might need someone to mop the blood out of your pretty hair!" she laughed.
"Who are you anyways!? Being so disrespectful of Sasuke-kun!" That Sakura girl really was too much.
"Ah, where are my manners? Namikaze Naruko, future Hokage." Sasuke rolled his eyes again.
Sakura sputtered, "R-really?" she said, looking like a deer caught in the headlights; finally realizing who she had been disrespecting. Naruko smirked.
"And don't forget it, Pinky." With that she turned, waving back when she heard the snort of laughter from Sasuke, feeling accomplished; two eye rolls and a laugh, for the usually uptight Uchiha she was on a roll today.
Later, near enough to lunch, Naruko found herself entering the Hokage's office. "Time for lunch, Ojii-chan! Get yourself out of this office and away from all that dull paperwork." she plopped down on the small couch on the right.
Sarutobi looked up from his aforementioned paperwork with a smile, "Indeed, Naruko," laying down his pen, the old man cracked his fingers, shaking out the stiffness, stood up and dawned his ceremonial hat.
Both soon found themselves at the Ichiraku Ramen stand. "I recieved a missive just this morning about that bridge in Nami no Kuni. Their bridge has been finished for some time now, and the country is finally starting to flourish after all. You'll be interested to know what they've named their bridge." said the Sandaime.
"Oh?" Naruko asked in between slurps.
"The Great Gama Bridge, I'm told," the old man chuckled."I'm sure Jiraiya has already got a big head over that one."
Naruko shared a laugh as well.
On her way home from lunch, Naruko spied a familiar pattern of duck butt hair ahead of her in the crowded street, sprinting around the people and catching up, she called out.
He turned at the sound of his name, stopping to wait for the blonde.
He looked a bit rumpled, but not bleeding thankfully, she noticed as she caught up. "Hey, what happened to survival training?"
Sasuke turned back, walking again, and Naruko kept pace. "He wanted to test our skills, but more than that, he tried to drill in the importance of teamwork." He scoffed.
"You don't think teamwork is important, Sasuke?"
"You saw Sakura, she's useless, and Sai, the dobe of the class. They're just going to hold me back." Hands in his pockets, they continued on.
"Every Konoha Shinobi works with a team, Sasuke. That's why we're so strong, we trust our team mates with our lives on every mission outside of the village. You're going to have to get used to that." Naruko said sternly.
Sasuke stubbornly remained silent, continuing on even after Naruko had stopped walking, going back to the empty Uchiha compound, alone. Always alone. Naruko would never understand.