Gaara had apparently found Naruto just in time since, less than a minute after he'd reached the boy, a pair of Hyuuga who had apparently been ordered to drag him back had appeared. They were now back before Hyuuga Hiashi, and thanks to Naruto, he had a feeling that he'd just dodged the Jutsu.
He was glad that Naruto was around. Despite his reputation for being dim and thickheaded, Naruto had a tendency to come up with unorthodox answers that actually worked, and it had naturally been Naruto who had been the one to find the obvious out that he had failed to spot in his panic over being stuck in a repeat of the "Iwa incident". Naruto also had a surprising talent for weaseling his way out of things by telling the complete truth in a manner that shunted the blame elsewhere, and he was using that ability to the fullest since he had not been in the mood to get married either, and had thought that trapping Hinata in a loveless marriage wouldn't be a good idea.
"...Didn't realize that a friend could be considered a Chaperone when he had mentioned that he hadn't had one since that is more of an important appointed position in Suna." Naruto was saying to the head of the Hyuuga clan as he did his best to get him out of the unwanted marriage. "The reason he'd lied about training was because he hadn't wanted to break Hinata's confidence. She had been feeling unhappy about how the preliminaries had gone, and had shared some things with us that she would rather have kept private."
Hyuuga Hiashi's expression had relaxed as Naruto finished speaking, and the man had ordered one of the Branch house members to stop fitting Hinata's wedding kimono and let the girl go back to bed as the apparent misunderstanding had been resolved.
Thank every deity in existence.
"Now that that's over with, I'm gonna go beat some sense into Neji." Naruto said after the Hyuuga had dismissed them, happy that his daughter didn't have to marry a foreigner - or anyone for that matter - to keep her reputation from being ruined.
"But you promised to play "Ninja" with me." he said, relieved that he was going to get out of there with his current state of bachelorhood intact.
He would marry when he was good and ready, and he wasn't ready at the moment. He'd seen what marriage had done to poor Kankuro and Shikamaru for that matter.
"Okay. Okay. Ninja first, then beat Neji up later." Naruto said smiling.
That evening's game of Ninja had been the best by far. There was always something about escaping a danger of some sort that made these kinds of moments all the more sweeter. Of course, he wasn't taking the ending of that game into account whenever he thought that upon looking back on it. The way the game had ended was one of those things where you had to wait a few years before you considered it safe to look back and laugh.
Sakura had been sleeping peacefully when the Genin from Suna had dropped in. When she woke up at the loud crashing noise that had jarred her from a nice dream where she'd been having a picnic with all of her friends, it was to find the red-haired brat that Naruto had befriended nearly two weeks before standing on several glass shards that had previously been her bedroom window.
"Sorry." he said somewhat apologetically. "It seems that my game of Ninja got out of hand."
"Sorry!" she yelled as she moved to beat the crap out of the boy who had invaded her home and woke her from her beauty sleep. "I'll show you sorry! It's three in the goddamn morning!"
The boy's eyes widened in fear and he gulped as he dove out the window with her in hot pursuit.
Hiruzen Sarutobi groaned as someone shook him awake. He'd only gotten to sleep a couple of hours ago after a rather eventful and emotionally draining day. After witnessing the preliminaries for the Third Phase of the Chunin Exams, he had been there to supervise Orochimaru's transfer from the hospital to the heavily warded cell where he was going to be kept until they could figure out how to kill the man who had made himself virtually unkillable. After that, he had been forced to fill out out all of the necessary paperwork regarding his former student's incarceration and pending execution.
It was sad really. Even knowing exactly what sort of monster his student had become, he still found himself seeing that small bright boy who had just lost both of his parents every time he looked at him. That sentimentality had been the reason that he had been unable to kill his student the day he had fled, and the reason he was even now reluctant to kill him. He would kill him because he had to though. He would kill him in order to protect Konoha, even though a small part of himself would die when he did so.
When he opened his eyes to see exactly who would be getting every sucky mission he could think of for the next three months, it was not to find a shinobi with important business that needed his immediate attention but, to find his grandson Konohamaru standing there instead.
"Jiichan, can I go outside and play with Naruto?" Konohamaru asked when he was finally awake.
"Why do you want to go and play with Naruto? It's three fifteen in the morning?" he asked when he caught sight of the clock on his bedside table.
"He, Gaara, and Sakura are playing a game that looks really fun." Konohamaru replied.
He blushed slightly at this. It seemed that he would have to have a certain talk with Naruto tomorrow, as well as a discussion about the kinds of things that were and weren't acceptable to do in public.
"Maybe when you're older Konohamaru." he replied. "But, not right now."
"Why am I not old enough to play tag with Naruto? Is it because Sakura's using real kunai?" Konohamaru asked.
"Wha...?"
"You can do this." Sasuke said to himself in order to psych himself up for his next prank. "You can make it through this. Remember, this is to get revenge on Kakashi. Even if Kakashi's fangirls mob you, it will be worth it in the end."
After making the requisite handseals, Sasuke shouted "Henge!". A moment later, Hatake Kakashi was standing where Uchiha Sasuke had been. Besides his mask however, he was completely naked.
"Alright. Time to go." he said to himself after checking his reflection in a nearby window.
With that, he walked off and took a leisurely stroll around town. Near a Shinobi bar, several patrons who had just exited after a night of drinking blinked before shaking their heads.
"Gai, go wake Kakashi up," Yuhi Kurenai said. "He's sleepwalking again."
"Yosh!" Gai yelled before sailing over his head with a kick that probably would have taken it off had he really been Kakashi's height.
"Hmm. I do not think that is Kakashi." Gai said after he smacked into the side of a building on the other side of the street.
"Hmm. You're right It's not." Yuhi Kurenai said as she studied him for a minute, slightly weaving in place. "It's the Uchiha brat."
"Why would Kakashi's potentially homicidal student pretend to be Kakashi?" Gai asked.
"It's probably another one of his pranks." Kurenai replied. "Let's just ignore him and go home."
Potentially homicidal student? he wondered as he watched Kakashi's fellow Jounin stagger off into the early morning. Potentially homicidal student? Why would they...? Ohhh...
"Damn you Itachi." he grumbled as he released the Henge which had failed to garner the effect he had desired.
Sighing, he turned away from the bar and headed back home. The last time he'd tried using Naruto's modified Oiroke Jutsu to get in, he'd failed for some strange reason. He wasn't really in the mood for company at the moment anyways, and he most definitely wasn't in the mood to get laughed at when he got zapped as invariably happened when he tried getting into a bar to drink since nobody at the local liquor stores would sell to him anymore.
Baki had been up worrying about what to put in his report back home. Gaara had been acting more strangely than usual lately. The boy usually hid his more random hobbies from just about everyone but now, he was bringing them out in the open, and that was becoming rather worrisome as it was extremely out of character for the boy who never showed his softer side to anyone if he could help it.
As he was setting brush to scroll, in order to ask Chiyo for advice since she was Suna's Jinchuriki expert, he heard the front door of their lodgings slam open, and just as quickly slam closed.
"Lock the door, lock the door, lock the door!" Gaara's new friend yelled desperately.
There was a click as the bolt slid home, and both Gaara and his blond friend - who was yet another thing he was worried about as intelligence had pointed to the boy being Konoha's Jinchruiki - let out sighs of relief as the doorknob rattled furiously. Then, he heard the sound of a kunai pounding against wood.
"Holy shit! She's trying to cut her way through!" Gaara's friend yelled.
"Your teammate is very scary." Gaara said.
"You said it!" the other boy yelled.
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor in this instance, he ran and hid. It was a prudent thing to do considering the fact that someone that Gaara found to be frightening was trying to get into their lodgings. From the sound of it, the girl was trying to cut her way through the three inch thick wooden door with a kunai, and he had a feeling that she might succeed.
Neji groaned and stretched. He'd fallen asleep during training again. He did that sometimes. This time though he'd ended up in a rather uncomfortable position and his back and neck hurt. Despite the aches that made moving painful, he would have to hurry home before Lee caught him out here during his early morning training.
He always made sure to do all of his extra training when Lee wouldn't see him. For some reason, the boy believed that all of his skill had come to him naturally without practice and, as it gave him a bit of an ego boost, he'd allowed the other boy to continue to believe it, even though he sometimes had to go out of his way to make it seem so.
His evening had been rather strange, as that loser Uzumaki had tried to challenge him for some reason, and had actually managed to land a blow on him. It had been a cheap shot that had come out of nowhere when he wasn't expecting it but, it was a blow nonetheless. The fight that the Uzumaki had been trying to pick hadn't happened however, as one of the Genin from Suna had come up and started saying something about a marriage to Hinata that he didn't quite catch or really care to. Whatever that other loser who was unfortunately related to him did didn't really concern him now that he'd proven his superiority over her before everyone.
As he was making his way back to the Hyuuga compound, his sensei's self-proclaimed eternal rival wandered by. Naked. Believing it to be some sort of joke, he activated his Byakugan to see who would have the balls to do such a thing.
Holy shit! That really was Kakashi!
Edited 11-4-12