A/N: YAY! I finally finished writing it and got it through the editing process! Now...I just need to finish writing chapter ten...I have it planned...just not written...Enjoy though! Remember! Reviews makes people write faster!

Chapter Nine – Remember the Teddy Bears

Naruto's training was going well. He now knew how to better control his chakra and he felt he could beat Neji and all of his other opponents.

He walked through the streets of Konoha towards his home looking foreward to a good bowl of ramen and then sleep—his new training was tough! As he approached his apartment building he looked up at his windows and stopped. Something felt wrong. The curtains hung just the same as always but something about them just felt wrong. He ran up the stairs five at a time and opened the door to his room.

Someone had definitely been there. The room was clean. When he had left he had left dishes in the kitchen and living room, and clothes had been everywhere, along with books and scrolls, but now it was clean, very clean. Naruto wouldn't have minded it being clean…if it weren't for the teddy bears covering every surface…including the walls and ceiling.

He stood on the doorstep in complete shock, until he realized how close the bears were to him. He slammed and locked the door behind him, gasping heavily as though he had just been attacked (Which in his mind he had). A plan popped into his head, forgetting the stairs he jumped off the third floor balcony and hit the ground running as fast as he could to Sakura's. When he reached it he pounded on the door, Sakura's mom answered.

"Hi! Is Sakura home? I need to talk to her desperately!"

"No, I'm afraid not, I would go to the hospital, she said something about getting flowers for a friend."

"Thanks!" Naruto said sprinting off to the hospital, almost crashing into Sakura and Ino halfway there.

He skidded to a halt in front of them. "Sakura-chan! Just the person I wanted to see!"

Sakura's face turned stony, her smile freezing on her lips. Naruto didn't notice that and plowed on instead.

"I need your—and Ino's—help! Come quick!" He said grabbing their arms, and started to drag them to his home.

Sakura hit him on the head. "And if I told you I had other things to do than help you?"

Naruto sat on the ground cradling his head. "Owww…but I need your help! Someone put some bears in my room…"

"Can't you get your clones to help get them out?" Sakura said glaring at him.

Naruto mumbled something under his breath. Sakura glared at him and was about to say no when an idea popped into her head.

"We'll help-" she started.

"We will?" Ino said surprised, she had been sure that Sakura was about to say no.

"You will?" Naruto asked at the same time.

"Yes. Let me finish. We'll help but we need you to go get 200 bear sized boxes—make sure they're pretty! And I need your keys to get in."

Naruto handed over his keys and left to get the boxes.

"And just what are we going to do?" Ino asked while they headed over to Naruto's.

"We're going to have Naruto take the boxes with the bears to the hospital and they're going to go to all the children that are in there." Sakura said smiling.

Ino smiled back. "Alright!"

When Naruto arrived back he saw that the bears were no longer on the ceiling but they were pilled on the floor on top of the other bears. Sakura looked up when he came back in.

"Good, your back. Can you start putting the bears in the boxes, Ino?"

"What do you want me to do Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, watching Ino put bears into boxes.

"Take these filled boxes to the hospital and tell the receptionist that they are to go to the children."

"But that'll take all night!"

"Then get some clones to help." She said a vein twitching.

"Ooooh." Naruto conjured ten clones and they got to work carrying boxes to the hospital.

Three hours later Naruto's apartment was bear-free.

"Whew! Thanks Sakura-chan, Ino-chan." Naruto said folding his arms behind his head, closing his eyes and releasing the clones, he'd never held them that long before.

"We're not done yet." Sakura said. "We've got to pay those three back."

"Huh? Who are they?" Naruto asked opening his eyes. "How do you know?"

"They left a note on your pillow." She showed Naruto and Ino the note.

Naruto growled. "They're back."

Sakura nodded. "And we must return their 'hello.'"

They then filled Ino in on who their visitors were and got to planning.

Kakashi approached his tent after a training session with Saskue. He stopped before the tent, not entering it though. Someone had been there—someone other than Gaara. A sinister presence emanated from the tent. He lifted his headband and pulled out a kunai, prepared for battle. Only then did he open the flap to his tent.

No one was inside. Instead an innocent hot pink box with bows and frills sat on his bed. He cautiously approached it and preformed every anti-trap trick that he knew. When it passed the test, he opened it.

Nothing happened. He looked inside. A dozen perfect looking cookies sat there. They were chocolate chip with big chips and a perfect golden-brown color. The smell they radiated made his mouth water and his stomach growl, but these cookies radiated evil.

He ran some poison tests on the cookies, they passed. He picked one up and decided to take a bite. Bad choice. It wasn't poisoned, it just tasted awful! It tasted like a mix of burnt cookie, medicine, and something…evil. There was no other word for that taste. He spat out the cookie and drank all the water he had in the tent to get rid of the taste. When he had emptied the last flask he found a note that had been in the box.

Dearest Kakahi-kun,

I made these cookies for you, I hope you like them. I have it on good authority that you love chocolate chip cookies. Enjoy!

Love,

Yoshiko, XOXOXO

Kakashi burned the box, letter and all the cookies. When Saskue asked about it he refused to answer.

Naruto, Sakura and Ino's plan was simple. It was executing the plan that was difficult.

"No, no, no! Naruto, over here! Put the flowers over here!" Sakura said spotting Naruto staggering the wrong way.

It was the next day and they were getting their revenge.

Naruto obediently put the flowers down where Sakura had pointed.

"Done!" Ino said coming out of the bedroom of the apartment they were decorating.

"We are too. Let's get out before she gets back." Sakura said heading to the door. The sound of voices stopped them though.

"Herenu! Stop worrying—no one could tell you messed up! Really!" Kazura's voice said trying to comfort her friend.

"I noticed." Yoshiko said matter of factly.

"Yoshiko! We're trying to comfort her—not make her more depressed!"

Sakura swore softly. She grabbed Naruto and Ino's arms and dragged them to the bedroom.

"Sakura-chan! They'll just find us here!" Naruto protested.

"No they won't!" She pointed to the window. "We'll escape through there!"

Ino quickly went up to the window and opened it, quickly sliding out, Sakura and Naruto just behind her.

Just seconds after they left they heard Kazura scream and two other voices laughing. They just picked up their pace giving each other high fives.

Kazura opened her door bent on getting a tub of ice cream into Herenu and stopped dead. Her eyes took in the sight before her and she opened her mouth and screamed.

Her walls were yellow. Not the normal yellow—but a bright happy yellow. There were chickens, roosters, cows, horses and many other barnyard animals painted on the walls, and the floor included several life sized animals. Her hot pink curtains had been replaced with checkered cloth. Her apartment now looked like her grandmother's house.

Herenu and Yoshiko started laughing. It was a horrible trick—now Kazura would now insist on moving away from this place, and they'd have to help her move, she'd probably crash at one of their places.

'We'll probably have to move her…' Herenu thought sadly as she wiped a tear of laughter from her face.

Kazura stopped screaming and jumped up onto the roof of the building. Her team mates saw the dangerous glint in her eyes and stopped laughing and took off after her.

After a short high speed chase they caught up with her and found, Naruto, Sakura and some blond girl, later identified as Ino, backed up into a corner with Kazura threatening them.

"…And when I get done doing that I'm going to put you through water torture as I stretch you all out on the rack! I'm going to break each of your fingers then gouge out your eyes with my finger nails!!!"

Herenu and Yoshiko both exchanged looks of concern. Kazura hadn't been this mad since they found her half conscious in the woods south of the sand country. They each reached out to restrain her as she lunged towards the trapped kids.

"RUN!" Herenu commanded barely avoiding Kazura's flailing fists.

"Run! Hide! Don't let her see you for at least a week!"

"If you want to make it past puberty—RUN!"

Naruto, Ino, and Sakura wisely chose to run, seeing the look of absolute terror in Herenu and Yoshiko's eyes.

Herenu shifted so that she held her more securely, and Yoshiko whacked her squarely on the head, knocking her out.

Herenu slid to the ground, the limp Kazura in her arms. "Now...where to keep her?"

"Your house, more eyes to keep an eye on her." Yoshiko said sitting down beside Herenu.

"Yeah, that would be the best." Herenu said, moving to a crouching position and shifting Kazura onto her back, then standing up.

"You know…we should distract her by stealing the Hokage's ball, that'll occupy our time until the third task in a couple of days." Yoshiko said walking besides Herenu.

"Good idea. We'll do it when she wakes up."

Kazura was up at four thirty in the morning.

"WAKE UP!" She yelled in their ears.

Yoshiko and Herenu started awake kunai in their hands ready for battle.

"Welcome to the waking world! Now! What are we doing this fine wonderful day???" Kazura said bouncing onto Herenu's bed.

Herenu looked over at her clock. WAY too early. She looked over at Yoshiko, who had crashed on her floor last night, and exchanged a 'she's got to be kidding' look.

"You two brought it on yourselves! This is what happens when I've had waaaay too much sleep! You remember what happened last time you woke me up too early? This is what happens when I get too much sleep."

Herenu and Yoshiko did remember. They'd woken her up at 2 am to pull a prank that they'd just came up with (after not sleeping all night) and she'd been barely coherent, they'd gotten her dressed and moving, but when she talked they got shivers from the pure evil radiating from her voice. Then they'd accidentally left her in some random coffee shop that they'd found their morning breakfast. She hadn't spoken to them for a day—which is a record.

"Now it's the opposite! What should we do?"

Yoshiko yawned and said sleepily, "we'd planned on stealing that crystal the Hokage has that he keeps spying on us with. When you woke up…we just didn't expect it to be 4:30am…"

"ALL RIGHT! LET'S GO!" Kazura said pumped up.

"Shhhh…you'll wake the house…" Herenu said pulling her hair up in a ponytail leaving her usual small braid out of it.

"Then let's go!" Kazura said pulling them out of bed and shoving clothes into their hands.

The Hokage walked into his private study bent on reading his ex-pupil's book. He sat down at his desk and pulled it from a secret drawer and sat back opening it to the page where he left off, when he noticed that something was wrong. He put the book down in his lap looking around. Trinity Six had been there, he recognized their chakara signatures in the air. His eyes fell upon the crystal in front of him and decided to check up on them. He extended his hands out and let some chakara out of them to activate the crystal. He expected a picture of Trinity Six to appear.

But I said expected.

What actually happened was that the ball vanished and a baseball appeared in it's place. Trinity Six had stolen his ball!

He stood up the book falling from his lap and he exited his office prepared to send a team of ANBU after them, but he was presented with a better option.

"Daiki! You've returned! Just in time! Your students have stolen my crystal ball! You must retrieve it! Your report can wait till you get it back!"

Daiki looked surprised but nodded his agreement and left.

Neji was out in the middle of the forest practicing when the weirdest thing happened, a girl stepped out of the trees and came towards him, and it wasn't Tenten or Hinata.

She had brown hair that hung in layers to just beyond her shoulders, she had blue eyes, and stood at 5' 6".

She smiled then burst into song:

I am your singing telegram!

I come from your one true love

I am not some kind of scam.

Just to tell you about your love!

Neji just stood there. "W-who did you say my love was?"

"Your wonderful teammate Tenten, of course! She also wants you to have this token of her love." She held out a silver bracelet with 'Tenten love's Neji' on it.

Neji stared at the bracelet for a second and then turned and ran.

Elsewhere…

Tenten was practicing with her weapons when Lee came out of the trees bearing a bouquet of roses. She stared at them…had Lee finally gotten some flowers for Sakura?

"Tenten! I have a wonderful gift for you!"

Tenten stopped practicing and almost ran away at that point. He'd gotten some flowers for her! She took a step back, preparing to run, when Lee grabbed her arm.

"It is from our dear teammate Neji! He is truly in the Springtime of Youth! I am excited that he has found a woman worthy of his love!"

Tenten was almost more floored at this announcement. Neji had given her the flowers!?

Daiki stood on the top of the tallest building and looked around him at Konoha. Where would his team be? 'If I was them and had just gotten the Hokage's crystal ball, what would I do? I would pull a prank…but on whom?' The problem with his team was that they often did things purely at random. He jumped off the building and started searching for them, asking every ninja that he saw if he'd seen them, along with the vendors that they frequented. No one had seen them…until Gai.

"No I have not, but Lee told me the most wonderful news! Neji has finally decided to declare his everlasting love to our dear Tenten! He is shy though, so has sent Lee off to her, with a bouquet of roses!"

Daiki's stomach lurched. That didn't sound like Neji at all…but it did sound like his Team, and now he knew where to look.

"Where do Neji and Tenten practice?"

"Out in the forest." Gai said wiping a tear from his face, and nudging him in the ribs. "Wanting to go get ideas?"

"Uh…no…I'm just curious." Daiki stepped back, if it had been Neji's doing and not his team's he would've been interested, but his team was involved.

He bid Gai farewell and head off in the opposite direction, then when Gai was out of sight he turned around and headed off to Trinity Six's hiding place. They thought he didn't know about it, but he had followed them once and discovered it, but never let on that he knew it.

As he approached, he saw a tall brunette heading away—Herenu's younger sister. What was she doing there? She's useless as a ninja…she just sings. He ignored her and continued on wards to the hideout.

"Neji ran away?" Kazura asked. "That's a bummer, we'll have to come up with a new way to get Tenten and him together."

Daiki sighed. He was right—they were playing matchmaker. He wondered where they might've hidden the ball.

He landed in front of the cave entrance and said, "Some cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go."

Trinity Six jumped as one.

"Shoot! It's Daiki-sensei!" Herenu said and the three of them dropped smoke bombs and vanished.

Daiki conjured two clones and took off after them.

Kazura headed into town after splitting off of the other two in order to loose Daiki. She heard his footsteps behind her and guessed that he must've conjured some clones to get them or she was his prime target. Had he been told about their prank? And when did he learn where their hide out was? He'd appeared out of no where when they'd spent so much time hiding it and it's existence, he'd just came up to it and started spouting quotes, and they'd reacted on instinct. Now that she had time to think she realized that he must've known about the crystal.

Kazura weaved in and out of the streets and rooftops at dangerous speeds. Daiki remained hot on her tail.

Kazura was just planning some daring escape when she ran into someone. She looked up and saw a red-head with very heavy eye make-up, and a kanji which meant love on the forehead. She heard her sensei's running footsteps behind her and quickly apologized.

"Sorry ma'm sorry!"

Then she was up and running with her sensei's footsteps following her.

Gaara stood there for a moment after some strange girl with pink and blond hair came and ran into him, apologized and ran off. That didn't bother him, she was gone and he probably wouldn't see her again, but ma'am?? He was thinking about all the ways that she could die when a jounin came running by, his blue eyes spelling certain doom for the fleeing girl. Gaara decided not to interrupt them, as it looked like she might not live much longer anyway, and continued on his way.
Yoshiko too was having problems while running away from her sensei. She'd run into the training grounds and after fifteen minutes lost her sensei, but she'd attracted the attention of another—and this one was less desirable than the first.

Ebisu had noticed her mad dash and escape from her sensei and was now proclaiming his everlasting love for her.

"That was the best performance I've seen in quite a while and I've never seen anyone loose Daiki so fast! You must be some genius when it comes to ninja skills! I hereby declare my everlasting love and devotion to you! You must accept my love!"

Yoshiko was shocked to say the least. "NO!" She said and ran away, Ebisu following her.

She ran away from him, using every last trick she knew to get rid of him, but to no luck—he refused to get lost. At that point she pulled out a small vial filled with some black liquid in it and downed it. After a second she felt the familiar power well up in her—a power than can influence. She stopped and looked Ebisu right in the eye and said, her voice layered in hypnotic influence, "go away!"

Ebisu didn't even hesitate. "Never! I will never leave you! You are my one true love—a love worthy of an elite ninja!"

Yoshiko groaned, she was never going to loose him.

She took off running again, Ebisu close behind.

An hour later she found herself in the main marketplace of Konoha, she ducked into the first shop she passed by, hoping to loose him inside the shop.

"Ah, I see," Ebisu said, coming in and adjusting his glasses blushing slightly. "You're finally giving up running from me and are going to accept me."

Yoshiko looked at him confused, and noticed two things. The first was that he wasn't sweating and she was. The second was that they were standing in the middle of a bunch of bras. She then blushed too.

"Only in your dreams," she said, but he wasn't listening, instead he was looking through the bras and picking out some for her to wear.

She decided now would be the best time to sneak out, but as she was inching away Ebisu looked up and asked "which do you like better this one?" he held up a pink lacy bra that was almost completely see-through, "or, this?" He held up a black one with little white flowers on it.

Yoshiko looked between the bras, "the black one, I'm going over here to look." As soon as he was looking at the bras again, she slipped out the front door, because everyone one expects fleeing ninja to slip out the back door or a window, right?

After a couple of blocks she looked around seeing if she was safe yet, thank goodness yes. She quickly fled to the hide out, she, Herenu, and Kazura shared.

Herenu too had lost their sensei and had slipped into a bookshop to check to see if the next book in her favorite series was out yet (to buy later, of course!) It was—and it was the last one, she decided that she had a couple of minutes and could buy it in that time. The only problem was Jiyaria…he was standing right in front of the book, and there was NO WAY she would ever get near him. Yes, he was an amazing ninja—one of the Legendary Sanin, but he was still a huge pervert, known to randomly pinch girl's butts, no matter their station or age.

She hung out a couple of isles over, with a view of Jiyaria and her book, the moment he moved she would go over and get it, then leave.

Naruto entered the shop and started looking at magazines. Just as Herenu was about to go over and get her book, butt pinch or no, Naruto walked over and started talking to Jiyaria, just like he was familiar with him.

'How does Naruto know him? And what are they talking about?' Herenu wondered.

As she stood there pondering the mystery Jiyaria walked away from the book, and Naruto moved on to the Manga section of the store. Herenu sighed in relief, now she wouldn't have to go near him. Jiyaria turned down her isle and she stepped closer to the shelves to let him pass, but he didn't. Herenu took a glance over her shoulder, just as someone behind her pinched her butt.

"Hey!" She said spinning around, glaring at the offender—and you guessed it! It was Jiyaria! "What was that for?"

"I heard you thought I was hot, hotsuff." He said turning on the charm.

"Guess again." She growled.

"Sugar?"

Herenu almost face-palmed herself…almost.

Herenu stood in front of Kazura's house three hours later. She didn't want to take Jiyaria to her house so she went to Kazura's.

"So, this is where you live. I like it."

Herenu grumbled mentally. She hadn't been able to loose Jiyaria no matter how hard she'd tried, and now was pretending Kazura's house was hers. Kazura would have a fit.

She pulled her copy of Kazura's house key out of her pocket and in one swift motion, unlocked the door, ran inside, shut the door, and locked it. She smiled when she heard Jiyaria pounding on the door. She quickly shut all the windows and activated Kazura's security system. Only Trinity Six (plus Daiki) could get in now. Everyone else would have paint dumped on them then kicked to the other side of town. Seconds later she heard the satisfying splat of paint and then an "owwwww!!" as Jiyaria met the security system.

Now, to wait for Kazura to get home…

Jiyaria was up early the next morning, after all, he had a new hot chick to stalk!

He started whistling as he walked over to her house. Today he would learn her name! Yesterday he learned where she lived and that she was a shinobi, but his inquiries into the name of a 'hot green-haired shinobi' had come to nothing.

He walked up to her front door, and decided to nock first, he didn't feel like spending all day getting neon pink paint off of him.

He knocked and after a minute a small child opened the door.

She was adorable in her bubble gum pink shirt that had hearts on it. She was also wearing overalls (also with hearts on it) and was bear foot. Her blond hair was up in a ponytail, leaving her pink bangs hanging on her face.

"Hi sweetie," Jiyaria said smiling sweetly. "Is your sister home? I would like to talk to her."

"She's not my sister, she's my mommy. Are you going to be my new daddy?" She asked looking up at him with her big blue eyes hopefully.

Jiyaria was on the other side of town quicker than last night when he got kicked.

Kazura closed the door, and turned to look at Herenu.

"You owe me BIG, Herenu."

Herenu nodded. "Thanks Kazura, I couldn't think of any other way to get rid of him."

Kazura shrugged in response, and went and changed into her usual outfit. "Well, Yoshiko should be here soon, I told her 8am at my place."

Five minutes later Yoshiko walked in reading as usual.

"Good, now that we're all here, we can talk about what happened yesterday." Kazura started off their meeting. "We met with failure in all of our ventures, save stealing the crystal, and Yoshiko and Herenu were stalked by creepy guys, while I was being chased by Sensei. Herenu received a visit from her stalker today. Yoshiko, has Ebisu contacted you in any way today?"

"No, not yet. He tutors Konohomaru though, so I suspect that he'll come to visit once he gets done training today." Yoshiko said still reading.

"Maybe we should just give back the crystal." Herenu said.

When Yoshiko and Kazura looked at her puzzled, she continued.

"Well, the one day we don't' have him watching us through that ball, and the day we steal it is when all the bad stuff starts happening, maybe it's a sign that we need to give the ball back?" She said.

Yoshiko and Kazura looked thoughtful for a minute then they agreed, and started planning for their next great adventure.

The Hokage walked into his private office to get away from the rest of the world and read. It'd been a long twenty-four hours. Daiki had come in and told him that after searching all night he couldn't find the ball. Then he'd had to hand out missions to those ninja that needed something to do. He'd also had to deal with complaints from all sides. But now he could relax and read his latest smutty novel.

He sat down at the desk and looked at the empty pedestal that his crystal ball normally sat on, then he opened his book. He looked back up at the pedestal almost instantly though, something was different. He put the book down and reached out one long finger to poke the space where the ball usually sat. His finger made contact with something, and the ball filtered back into view, along with a note.

Dear Hokage,

This didn't make a good baseball. You can have it back.

Love,

Trinity Six

0.0.0.0.0.0.0

Daiki's Quote: Oscar Wilde (Yeah my cool little astrict thing didn't work...it typically doesn't...)

Yay! We gathered stalkers! Next chapter...The Third Task! Here's a sneak preview for anyone who cares:

Herenu looked up into Iruka's black eyes. His gaze was intent on her filled with concern. He gently set her on her feet and his hand gently reached up to caress her chin.

"Are you hurt?" His voice was breathless as if the answer meant the world to him. His eyes searched her face and body for any sign of injury.

Herenu was completely beyond speech. Her knees gave out and Iruka caught her gathering her close. They were inches apart and she felt her breath quicken as his eyes darkened with emotion.

"Herenu, I--" He began. "I need you.."