This is the last half of chapter four of Lies Made From Light and Fire. Because of some various shenannigans, largely my fault, I admit, anyone who had reviewed the previous chapter 28 (which was actually Light and Fire 3), wasn't able to review the current Light and Fire 4. So, being the pathetic review whore I am, I decided to split the chapter in two, just so I could create a chapter 29 that you could review. Thank you, and sorry if I got your hopes up. Mistakes were made.

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Asuma disappeared briefly as they neared completion of their tasks, although he returned quickly, bringing a special package. Kakashi's students were behaving themselves remarkably well. All things considered, they weren't bad genin. They had the boundless energy and eagerness to please of a trio of puppies, but the person they'd most been trying to emulate was almost certainly the worst possible person to pick up social habits from.

Kakashi could be who he was because he had the years of experience, the foundation of being a whole different person under his belt. He hadn't always been the irreverent, almost lackluster man he was today, and if he had been, he certainly wouldn't be nearly the caliber of ninja that he was.

His students, clever little bastards that they were, saw his attitudes and actions as the pinnacle of his development, not the counterbalance to a childhood as troubled as theirs had been.

Also, they were unbelievably rude and aggressive. It was nothing short of astonishing to see them behave as they did, when he knew that all of them were brought up to be reserved, polite, and quietly watchful. There seemed to be some unseen force driving them to stand out and make their presence known in the most formal manner possible.

Asuma's own students, however, were a good match for them. Gai's students were all a bit prickly about their skills and their pride, so they naturally clashed with Team Seven. But the youngest Ino-Shika-Cho team were laid back and reserved almost to a fault. Chouji had an inner poise that could not be broken, for all he was terrible at shedding his reliance on certain vices. With no crippling fears, he had no urge to lash out at others. Shikamaru was much the same, insomuch that his motivations seemed to be as fond of laying on its back and passively watching the world pass by as he was as a whole. Ino was the only one of the trio who even came close to the kind of jealous pride that Team Seven wore like a cloak, and if she couldn't match Hinata in the combat arts, she would comfort herself in being more feminine, which could be just as deadly as a knife in the back.

Hinata had proved to be very nearly as aggressive as her teammates, and Ino had called her on 'tomboyish' behavior once.

"Hell, we like her like that, right Sasuke?" Naruto had called back. "She's just one of us boys."

"Just one of the boys," Sasuke echoed.

There was a short pause.

Then, Sasuke, to the surprise of everyone, and considerable delight of Ino, had whipped off his shirt and started beating his bare chest in a parody of the legendary mountain gorilla.

"AAAAAAaaaaAAaaAAaaAAAAHAaaaa!" Sasuke whooped with a primal scream, gaining looks of utter astonishment from Asuma's students.

Interestingly, Naruto had an expectant, waiting grin on his face, and Hinata…

Hinata looked resigned?

Sasuke immediately pulled his shirt on and went back to his earlier bored, detached demeanor, so like Shikamaru's. He turned to Hinata.

"Your turn," he said simply.

Hinata sighed defeat, whispering the words 'I knew it had to be something' to herself, and Naruto broke up laughing. After some shocked delay, Team Ten joined them, torn between laughing at Hinata and laughing at the surprising actions of the last Uchiha.

Overhearing his own chuckles, and catching a glimpse of his momentarily shocked expression, one of the remaining Naruto clones spoke quietly to him.

"Yeah, the first time I heard him crack a joke, I thought he'd gone insane," Naruto confessed. "Turns out that he just likes being mean to people more than he liked being a stuck up prick. Either way he's a bastard, but at least this way, he's a funny bastard."

"It's better to be involved but disliked than to remain neutral but alone," Asuma replied. "Of course, that goes for the rest of you. Yes, they are out to get you, but not today, not here. You've got to live while you can."

The clone stared at him for a moment, then dispelled.

Heh. Kakashi might have been the worst person to teach them social skills, but he'd definitely done a job on their ninja skills. Naruto no more believed he could trust Asuma or his students than he believed he could trust the Mizukage. Kakashi had them looking for games and plots under every word and action, skills many ninja didn't learn until they were chunin, and some never seemed to learn at all.

Ah, well. He didn't expect them to trust him today, but hopefully they'd realize that no one from Asuma's team was going to be out to get them tomorrow, either, or the next day. They'd found peace with each other, and instead of being satisfied with that, they needed to find it with others as well.

Kakashi had taught them to stay alive, and given the danger they saw, that was certainly the highest priority. Asuma, however, would teach them how to live.

"Well, now that we've got this training ground nice and fixed up," he said, strolling forward with a large, flat box under his arm, "what do you say we use it for a little training?"

Kakashi's students perked up, interested. They'd all worked to fill in the holes and set up new posts, and they were probably hoping for some sparring, or perhaps some jutsu hints. Knowing Kakashi, the guy almost certainly hadn't taught them a single ninjutsu or genjutsu, and his method of teaching taijutsu was to viciously exploit any openings with a well placed, and painful, strike. No, Kakashi was all about teaching them by forcing them to learn how to learn on their own.

"I thought, since we'd all watched him so valiantly battle against the ruthless chains of gravity last week, we'd give Naruto a chance for a rematch." Asuma paused, gauging their reactions. His team looked confused, Kakashi's students looked wary. "For our own amusement, of course." He proudly presented the flat box.

"Ah, gravity, my old nemesis," Naruto said cautiously, studying the box.

It seemed to be made out of a combination of thin wooden slats and thick, mottled green cloth, silk, probably. It was rectangular, about a meter wide and two meters long, and about a half meter thick, which made it quite large and bulky, for all it didn't seem to weigh much.

Then, Asuma tugged on a seam running down the side, and with the creak of dry, springy wood, it unfurled to even larger dimensions, becoming much like a large, foldable paper wall. It wasn't purely rectangular anymore, now having hints of wings and a defined tail, and they also saw that the camouflage color was only on the top. Asuma flipped it over, and the underside was a light grey the color of a cloudy sky. Silk straps dangled from the thickest support struts, and a coiled tail was tied to the bottom as well, waiting for deployment.

"It's a yakko, a sentinel kite," Asuma explained. "Basically, a man-lifting kami-tori they use to see long distances out in the plains, since there aren't many high spots. It was captured from some grass nin a while back, and it's been laying around in the general armory taking up space since then. No one really knows how to use it and certainly no one feels like breaking their neck trying to figure out how. Plus, you need a really strong wind to lift them, and we just don't have it around here."

Naruto stared at it, somewhat stunned, but also strangely intrigued.

Asuma handed it to him. "So, since you seem to have no problem throwing yourself around in the sky, I figured you might want to try having some actual control while you're up there."

"So with this… I can actually fly, huh?" Naruto mused, turning it over and tugging at the straps, testing their firmness.

"Well, you're supposed to have it anchored to the ground, and the wind just lifts it into the air," Asuma admitted. "But I've heard of the riders cutting the ropes and gliding for a pretty good ways. If you can somehow figure out how to hang on and make shadow clones to push off of at the same time, you should be able to get a pretty good ways before you run out of chakra."

"I don't run out of chakra," Naruto replied distractedly, thumping on the thin wooden slats that made the frame.

Asuma's students gave him odd, speculative looks, but were ignored.

"Hinata?" Naruto asked suddenly, looking at his girlfriend.

Hinata shrugged. "I'm surprised it doesn't fall apart in your hands. There are at least four dozen ways to turn it into a tangled wad of scraps."

Naruto nodded seriously, and turned to Asuma.

"So… how do I start?" he asked, his mouth twisting into an eager grin.

The elder jounin demonstrated what he knew of the straps and the way the wings would flex and shift if a certain bar was twisted.

"Ah, sensei, isn't it going to be difficult to launch?" Ino asked curiously. "If he has to get off the ground by jumping, wouldn't trying to jump with the kite be harder?"

Asuma shrugged. "Probably. I'll help and give him a good hard throw, but it may not be possible from the flatlands like this. It'd be a lot easier to throw him off the Hokage monument, since he'd have more time to figure out how to fly before he hit the ground."

"I like that idea," Sasuke admitted. "Why don't we go with that plan?"

Asuma glanced at the Uchiha, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

"Because the fall will hurt more?" he asked.

Sasuke shrugged, as if that was self evident.

"Well, I'd thought about it," Asuma admitted. "And we could all watch and scream unhelpful advice while he plummets to his death." He waved his hand helplessly. "I decided against it because I figured he'd somehow manage to crash into something expensive, and I'm not paying, are you?"

Sasuke actually appeared to consider it for a moment before giving their sensei the point.

With little further ado, Naruto managed to get a single strap around his chest, and his feet to stick to a crossbar with the same chakra technique involved in tree walking. This left his arms free to move around, but he quickly grabbed the wings when Asuma picked him up by the front of his shirt and dangled him from his impressively large fist.

Asuma wondered, briefly, if Sasuke's sharingan would be able to pick up the technique he was about to do, but rated it pretty unlikely. He made a series of one handed seals, hidden by his body, and most of it was a pure chakra molding exercise. Hinata might be able to spot the seals, if she was looking, and together they might be able to piece the technique back together. If so, they deserved to know it. That was how you taught genin, unless you were Kakashi.

"Any last words, kid?" Asuma asked, cocking his arm back to throw Naruto like a dart.

"ActuaaaaaAAAAAAAHHHHHHAAAAHAHHHAAAAA!" Naruto screamed as he was sent hurtling skyward with a combination of brute strength and a tremendous gust of wind. In the brief, lucid moment of weightlessness at the apogee of his rise, Naruto laughed. "Yeah, I thought that was going to happen," he admitted to himself.

The kite slid backwards, caught air in reverse, flipped with a sickening whirl, and immediately began its descent.

Oh hey, there's the ground. It does not appear to be that far away.

Asuma had given him a tremendous throw, as if he'd fly into the sky and land among the stars. However, even as powerful as the throw and tailwind had been, Naruto was still only about a hundred feet in the air, and a hundred feet can disappear really quickly.

Naruto hastily brought his hands together and started making kage bunshin. The first pushed off his gut with an 'oof', giving him a slight upward boost that was mostly canceled by the resistance from the wings. The second and the third didn't do much better, though at least he wasn't falling anymore.

People were screaming unhelpful and unsolicited advice at him from the ground, which apparently was a part of their entertainment. He ignored them and used his usual method of dealing with a problem.

He brute force out thought it.

Naruto made a dozen clones and sent them out in all directions at once, each with instructions to fall as long as possible and watch him while he studied different combinations of pulling on the kite struts and sending new clones out.

As usual, studying the problem from lots of different angles worked pretty well, even if towards the end he was also getting back the memories of a lot of tree branches through the sternum, which told him he was closer to the ground than he really should be.

Soon, shifting his weight to the back of the kite and making a lot of clones very fast in succession, he managed to get a relatively stead, though still jerky, forward acceleration that caused the kite to rise as well.

He kept going, dropping clones to fall naturally as well as the ones pushing against his feet to send him forward, and he figured out how to circle upwards in a spiral like a vulture on a thermal, staying over roughly the same area of the forest.

It was… beautiful up there. Forest stretched for miles all around, with one noticeable circle several kilometers away, which contained the most heavily developed parts of Konoha. He could see the Hokage monument, and this time he was higher. Much higher, about at the same level that the high flying hawks and long ranging carrion birds flew at. He stopped making clones, grabbed the wings, and settled into a glide.

Below him, the trees were dotted with small clearings, including the one where his friends waited. Over to one side, the trees grew steadily taller, until they were monsters that dwarfed the merely normal forest that dominated most of the countryside.

The air rushed by his head, tousling his hair and whistling in his ears as he steadily glided down. It was fresh, cool and clean up here, without the muggy haze trapped by the trees, a dingy cloud clinging to the forest canopy below. Whoever said trees cleaned up the air was full of shit, he could see the filth in the air down there.

He dipped one wing, bobbing slightly, and started a wide arc over Konoha. He felt a little like what he supposed a bird might feel like looking down at its nest, or, a new idea struck him, a god looking down on his people.

It was just so incredible up there. He was so close to being truly free, his only restraint the silk strap across his chest and his own grip on the kite at his back. The leaves were all green and healthy, fluttering gently in the sunlight. The sky was clear and blue.

He couldn't stop smiling, and he was still smiling twenty minutes later when he botched the landing and Asuma had to save him from crashing face first into a tree.

"So, what was it like up there?" Ino asked curiously, having been the most open admirer of how high and far he'd gone on the kite.

"Oh, it was awesome!" Naruto replied enthusiastically. "Thanks, Asuma-sensei, that was a great idea!" He paused, searching for words, then shrugged and made eight clones.

All nine Narutos began talking simultaneously, overlapping each other in their haste to explain.

"Everything was so green-"

"-like a bird-"

"-so BLUE-"

"-little bitty people-"

"-cool air-"

"-see Konoha-"

"-kinda wobbly-"

"-see the monument-"

"-the Forest of Death-"

"-see EVERYTHING!" he finally finished, still full of bubbly energy, despite all the clones he'd made.

"…" they all replied, shocked at the seemingly genuine enthusiasm he was displaying for something that didn't directly contribute to his ability to efficiently kill people.

Asuma grinned tolerantly.

"Well, at least you had fun," Chouji said philosophically enough, knowing that he would never be able to fly such a flimsy contraption.

That seemed to cause Naruto to realize how open he was being, and his whole body language changed, drawing in on himself.

"Well, you know, it could be useful, too. It was pretty fast, so I could cover a lot of ground. And it could be used for recon missions and stuff, like they did originally," he explained defensively.

His teammates stared at him dubiously, but it was Hinata who acted first.

She reached up, lightly touched her tenketsu to unseal the chakra feeding her eyes, and rather pointedly stared off into space.

"Oh, hey look!" she said with false cheer, standing firmly on the ground surrounded by trees. "I can see my house from here!"

Sasuke snickered cruelly at the crestfallen look on Naruto's face.

But Naruto quickly recovered and playfully pushed Hinata's hitai-ate back down, covering her eyes.

"Heh, well, yeah, as Hinata-chan pointed out, our best bet for long distance recon is her, so I guess it's not gonna be that useful after all." He grinned. "But it was fun. I want to do that again sometime."

"Hinata, that was cruel," Ino said reproachfully. "Why'd you do that? I thought you loved him?"

Hinata gave Ino a level stare, the light reflecting off the metal forehead protector covering her eyes.

"We're shinobi. We're rough, vicious killers in a rough, vicious world," she said plainly. "If our love and friendship is to survive, it's got to be just as rough and tough."

"…oh," Ino replied, not knowing how to express the disagreement she felt but couldn't quite justify.

Naruto laughed and put his arm around Hinata's shoulders.

"You might even say, we like it rough," he said with a grin.

Ino and Chouji both blushed and looked away, Shikamaru just sighed.

Asuma, though, looked at them thoughtfully, and wondered how to approach the issue. Like Ino, he disagreed with Hinata's statement, but unlike her he knew how to put it into words. However, he kept his mouth shut for the moment, wondering what to do with the new information.

Clearly, Naruto did have something, some last vestige of innocence and childhood still hiding within him, a gentler, more innocent part of him that wasn't entirely comfortable with the person he was becoming.

And just as clearly, Hinata had thrown away hers.

All this time they'd been assuming that Naruto was the corrupter, the influence that had turned a child into a killer, and maybe some of that was true, certainly his teammates both tried to please him enough. But it was another case of genin falling for the 'do as I say, not as I do' trap.

Maybe, just maybe, instead of lifting him out of the darkness, Naruto's friends were pulling him into it.

And if so, what could be done about it? There would be no separation of that team. He could see it in the way they stood together, the way they watched each other's blind spots, the way they looked at each other. To tear them apart would be to kill them.

Asuma sincerely hoped that his impression was wrong.

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After some deliberation, which Team Ten seemed to consider with a strange intensity, it was decided that they would all eat curry for lunch.

For Naruto and his team, it was a very interesting discussion, broken only twice as Chouji, who was apparently the considerate one, asked them their opinions on various foodstuffs. He did most of the talking in general, but to the various gifts of insight the members of Team Seven were gifted with, Shikamaru's noncommittal slouches and bored looks changed slightly with each reasoned suggestion, which Chouji was apparently able to read at a glance. Ino was the voice of moderation and Asuma the final authority.

It was, actually, slightly impressive in that it showed how their team worked together harmoniously, without the playful bickering and backhanded complimentary insults of Team Seven.

If an accurate representation of how they lived and worked together, and not just banding together in the presence of a perceived threat, it bore thought.

"Asuma-sensei, if you don't mind me asking," Naruto asked politely as they all walked towards lunch, "what is your team's specialty?"

He shrugged. "Well, we do a lot of taijutsu training, since their best techniques are family styles I can't teach them, so I guess you could say we've been focusing on personal combat."

Naruto shook his head. "No, I mean, what types of missions are you training them for?"

Asuma ahhed and rubbed his beard thoughtfully. "Well, they're training to be able to handle a wide variety of missions, but if you were to pick a given type that they'd be most suitable for… hmm. I'd say capture/kill type missions."

Naruto stared at him.

Asuma thought about it a little bit more, than smiled and nodded. "Yeah, that'd be it. Capture/kill, or if you'd rather use a different term, kidnapping and assassination. Only Chouji has the kind of strength you'd need for a combat team, and none of them have the right abilities for tracking, but they're pretty much perfect for taking out specific groups of enemies." He gave Team Seven a smile.

Team Seven was no longer looking at him, instead studying their counterparts with a fresh eye.

Chouji shrugged, Shikamaru ignored them, and Ino hunched her shoulders in an almost embarrassed but defiantly proud manner that suggested she was worried that others might not think assassination as a proper job for a beautiful young woman, but she had the knack for it and was proud of it anyway.

Three sets of eyes zeroed in on her.

Weak, but potentially dangerous, Hinata thought.

Weak, but potentially useful, Naruto thought.

Hinata doesn't trust her and Naruto is intrigued. How can I make this interesting… Sasuke thought quietly.

It was Hinata who spoke first.

"Ino, what was that technique you used against me?" Hinata asked.

Ino looked wary. "It's one of my family's techniques, called the Shintenshin."

"Could I convince you to demonstrate that technique again?" she asked politely. "I saw you using it, and I caught a glimpse of something unbelievable that I hope was just the side effect of looking through my hitai-ate."

Ino shook her head firmly. "No way. If we get into a fight or something, I might, but there's no way I want to be inside of your head again." She gestured at Sasuke. "And Sasuke might be cute and all, but I still don't want to give away family techniques."

Hinata glanced at Sasuke, wordlessly asking him to back her up.

He shrugged. "If you're trying to protect it from me, don't bother." He quickly formed hand seals, the same ones she used, and thrust his hands at Shikamaru.

Everyone flinched, but Sasuke's body didn't collapse and Shikamaru just gave them all a long suffering look.

Sasuke held out his hands. "I saw the hand seals, but I can't copy bloodlimits. Everyone knows that."

"It's not a bloodlimit," Ino countered.

"Now you're just lying to us," Sasuke retorted. "If it wasn't a bloodlimit, I could have copied it. I'm Uchiha, that's what we do. Same thing with that shadow technique."

Shikamaru smiled for a change. "Also not a bloodlimit."

Sasuke snorted and dropped it, deciding that the argument was beneath him. They could lie as much as they wanted, but he knew they had bloodlimits. He might not have had the kind of education most Uchiha would have had, since he'd been alone for so many years, but he had a family library full of scrolls, and the Yamanaka, Nara, and Akimichi were very clearly listed as bloodlimit holders. They could lie and quibble about what made an actual 'bloodlimit' but that was just semantics. Same with the Aburame and the Inuzuka. They might claim that it was only their contracts with the bugs and the dogs that enabled them to do the things they did, but that was just covering up the fact that no one but members of those clans had ever been able to do those techniques with those contracts.

"I don't want to be possessed again, once was enough, thank you," Hinata said, bringing the conversation back on track. "I simply want to see the technique with uncovered eyes. I can't copy it, and if what I think I saw is accurate, I wouldn't want to."

"The answer is still no," Ino said firmly.

"What if I could get you a date with Sasuke?" Hinata pressed.

"Hey!" Sasuke protested immediately.

Ino rolled her eyes. "Sasuke clearly doesn't want to date me, or he wouldn't be dating Sakura. No deal."

"It's not that," Sasuke explained. "If I've got to seduce some girl for a mission, I'll do it, but this is Konoha. I'll probably end up marrying a girl from here, since rebuilding my clan is one of my eventual goals," he said, giving Naruto and Hinata a significant look. "I won't go around trading dates for favors because that would cheapen any eventual love that might develop."

Naruto grinned and started to open his mouth, but Sasuke cut him off.

"And don't give me any crap about this. I'm serious," he warned before turning back to Ino. "Ino, for one thing, I'm not dating Sakura. I did, yes, carry her out on one date, because she impressed me. That does not mean we're dating. The point is, if I wanted to date Sakura again, or if I wanted to ask you out, for instance, it would be because I was genuinely interested in dating you. No other reason." He gave Hinata a disgusted look and turned away.

"…so, yeah, Sasuke's the romantic on our team," Hinata continued after a moment. "Anyway. Name your price. I offer… neutrality in all things related to your interests that don't directly conflict with my own, and the kind of jutsu advice you can only get from a Hyuga. Remember, I can see your coils directly, so if you're having trouble with something…" She shrugged.

Ino actually wavered for a moment. "Neutrality?" she asked, raising one eyebrow. "Not assistance?"

It was Naruto who shrugged helplessly. "Well, it beats our usual track record of actively interfering with other people's plans for our own amusement. Tell you what, I'll throw in active assistance. Three favors, your choice. While our specialties are, admittedly, more inclined towards breaking stuff and counter ops, I'm sure we'll get some missions where we have to help people someday. It'll be good practice." He smiled brightly, showing teeth.

"Three favors," Hinata agreed.

Ino hummed softly to herself, eyeing Hinata speculatively. "And the jutsu help?"

"As I said, I can see chakra. If you're molding it inefficiently, or in the wrong amounts on each seal, I can spot the mistake and guide you until you get it right. I use it to help Naruto quite a bit, who, as you may recall, was the worst at ninjutsu techniques in our class. Now…" She smiled. "Not so much."

"And what are the limits on that 'advice'?"

"No actual techniques, just help on the ones you get from other sources. If you want an actual technique, it'll cost you one of those three favors."

Ino's jaw dropped. "You would trade an actual jutsu for another look at mine? How many jutsu do you know, anyway?"

Hinata smiled. "More than you'd think."

That was the moment where Asuma felt a little silly for offering them a few hints at an easy wind jutsu earlier, because he didn't doubt her smug boast at all. He'd assumed Kakashi hadn't taught them a single technique, but either the scarecrow had decided to just give them out like candy… Or the three devious little bastards in front of him had stumbled into some poorly guarded stash of techniques and lost precious little time exploiting the resource.

Sharingan, Byakugan, unlimited chakra, who knew how many different techniques… They should all be killed for the betterment of mankind, he realized, and laughed.

You didn't become a ninja if you let little things like the potential horror of human limitations being released scare you. Actually, it just made him realize exactly how valuable they could be to the various people interested in them.

And yet they'd ended up with him. Gai was a devious bastard, when you got down to it, and Asuma never forgot that. He'd almost certainly stuck Asuma with them because Asuma had no lofty ambitions outside of his own students and maybe a few things he'd like to do to Kurenai.

With Kurenai. He meant with Kurenai.

He glanced around warily.

"So do we have a deal?" Hinata asked.

Ino looked at her, her face set in a stern line, and Hinata could see that they did, in fact, have a deal. It was written in the set of her shoulders, the faraway look in her eyes, and the tension in her mouth. All she had to do now was close it.

"Just tell me one more thing. Why do you want to see it?" Ino asked.

Hinata nodded. "As I said, I caught a glimpse of something pretty incredible when you performed that technique. I simply want to see if it was real." She shrugged helplessly. "I can't be any more specific than that without seeing it again. I'm not even sure what I saw."

Ino gave her a hard look, then nodded. "Deal. But I'm going to want at least one jutsu."

Together, they continued through the village to the curry restaurant they'd decided on. Team Seven was absolutely astonished when Asuma ended up paying for their meals as well.

Naruto nudged the plate of food in front of him dubiously, while Sasuke stared at his and Hinata performed seals for some obscure Hyuga eye technique.

Asuma sighed. "Oh for… Look, I'm only buying for you because I know Kakashi never would, and it amuses me. I knew it would freak you out."

Naruto looked up, seeming curiously vulnerable.

"It's working," he assured the jounin.

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After lunch they all went back to the training grounds. Asuma said he intended to let them spar a bit, under close supervision, so murdering teammates was strictly forbidden, but he was also willing to let Ino demonstrate her jutsu for Team Seven.

"I don't really feel like possessing anyone, so I'll just cast out and return. Is that okay?" she asked Hinata.

"You can do it without a target?" Hinata asked, surprised.

"Of course," Ino replied, but didn't elaborate.

Hinata nodded. "That should be fine." She raised her hitai-ate and unsealed her tenketsu, letting power flow to her black eyes once again.

Words really could not describe the things she saw with her vision like that. The normal byakugan, if such a thing could be called normal, already gave the ability to see wavelengths of light normal eyes couldn't hope to see, as well as the ability to see both physical and spiritual energy as chakra. But, as she'd discovered, there were a great many more dimensions to the world around her than she'd ever guessed, and she could see all of them.

Watching some of them apparently stare back at her was something she'd learned to quickly ignore as 'just one of those things'.

Ino took up position a little way away from the group, facing into the forest, performed the seals for the Shintenshin, and thrust her hands away from her. For a split second, her body started to go limp, then consciousness returned to her and Ino stood straight again, looking back at the others to gauge their reactions.

Naruto noted the lag time between performing the technique and going back to alertness. Sasuke saw that, as well as finer details of the way her chakra flared, then dropped to an ebb in that moment of weakness.

Hinata stared unmoving for several moments before she said anything.

"That is arguably the most disgusting thing I have ever seen," she said seriously.

Sasuke immediately turned around and started walking away, his expression stony. Naruto seemed to consider that sentence for a moment, his eyes widening in horror, and then, surprisingly, puked on the ground at his feet.

The sound hit Sasuke as he was walking away, and that caused him to lose it too. Sasuke dropped to his hands and knees and retched noisily.

"Eww," Ino complained.

Hinata remained standing, her expression frozen.

After a moment, Naruto straightened shakily and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

Shikamaru stared at him.

"You threw up?" he asked incredulously.

"Little bit, yeah," Naruto admitted.

Sasuke was still horking lunch all over the ground, though he seemed to be finishing up, since there was getting to be more gagging and less splashing.

"Why?"

"What, are you kidding me?" Naruto exclaimed. "I know what she's seen. I was THERE."

After a moment, Sasuke rejoined them, looking pale while he swished his mouth out with water from a canteen. Naruto had a point. Always carry a canteen.

Naruto gestured vaguely at Sasuke. "And the horrible things? They were happening to him." He shuddered. "So if she says it's worse…"

"Shut up, Naruto, for all our sakes," Sasuke growled, closing his eyes and swallowing.

"Just what did you see?" Ino asked, offended. "I mean, it's my technique, and it's really useful, but I always thought it was rather elegant and refined." She tossed her ponytail and glared.

"Well, I wasn't sure when I first saw it, but wh-"

Sasuke immediately stuck fingers in his ears and closed his eyes against reading her lips. He really, really didn't want to know.

"La la la la la la la la…" he mumbled, making sure he couldn't understand her words.

"-so I was watching closely this time, and I saw chakra infusing your body, then you flared your spiritual chakra… and then you tore your soul out and threw it across the screaming void between life and death, and also the clearing, and then your soul just stopped flying and went back, where it sort of…" Hinata paused, searching for words, "…slurped back into your body."

Everyone stared at her with wide eyes except for Sasuke, who was still shutting out the conversation, and Ino, who frowned. "It's a lot neater than 'slurping', I'll have you know," she insisted.

"You're still tearing out your soul and throwing it at people," Hinata countered.

Ino shrugged and hunched her shoulders defensively. "Well, yeah, how else are you gonna possess their minds and bodies?"

Hinata just stared at Ino, eyes wide.

Sasuke, hoping the conversation was over, cautiously opened one eye and peeked.

Naruto's gaze went distant for a moment as he considered what Hinata had told them, then, as politely as he could manage, he turned away from them and threw up again.

"Huuuuulp!"

It was yet another moment Sasuke's sharingan would record that he would always regret seeing.

First, Naruto seemed lost in thought. Then, he was spraying half digested curry on the ground.

Sasuke quickly squinched his eyes shut again.

"LA LA LA LA LA LA LA…"

"So if it's so disgusting, why aren't you…?" Shikamaru asked, waving at Naruto and Sasuke.

Hinata just looked at him. Her expression and the empty, gaping voids that replaced her eyes somehow conveying the wordless screaming horrors she had born witness to.

Shikamaru just grunted, unimpressed.

"Yeah, well, I've seen Chouji's dad in a thong," Shikamaru countered, sounding bored by the exchange.

Hinata couldn't help but smile at that.

"La la la la la la I'm not listening…." Sasuke chanted in a sing song voice, oblivious to all.

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Authors Lie: Well, a bit faster this time. The main delay was that I got sucked into Saints Row 2 coop. It was surprisingly good, especially since I generally don't care for the whole gang banger thing. Of course, little humor bits like being able to make your whole gang wear ninja outfits and assassinate the odd pirate, not to mention dress up like a spartan and ride a minibike around killing random people to the tune of Ride of the Valkyries. I mean, what other game will not only let you grab a pimp and throw him off a pier, but actually scores you and keeps track of your best distance? The genius of the game is that it rewards you for the things you'd do anyway.

I almost freaking died when I accidentally touched off a ninja/stripper war. Like two dozen ninjas versus about fifteen strippers. Strippers shanking ninjas, ninjas shotgunning strippers… I loled.

Lets ride, ninja.

Anyway. Last time I posted a chapter I was rushed getting it out on Christmas day, so I neglected to mention a few things. Most importantly, the wonderful Buni-san gave me some People Lie fanart of Naruto for christmas. There's a link in my bio. Also Tengokujin did a revised inked version of the one I drew a while back. It's also linked.

New interesting fics wise, I've added some to my favorites list. Buni-san is rewriting her fic, Aniki. Hardcore Heathen is moving forward on his somewhat twisted crossover (Naruto? On Arrakis? Oh, god, those poor Fremen.) And… well, there's more, check my favorites for the recent updates. Some really good stuff in there.

Hope you enjoyed, and don't forget to review!

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…Oh, and one more thing. A while back, when I was trying to get back into the writing groove again, I did a challenge exercise just for fun. Basically, people would suggest topics, and I would do my best to write in character Team Lie responses to those topics. Some were alright, most were meh, but someone ended up asking Team Lie about the various breasts in the series.

So, I give you, just as a bonus, Sasuke's thoughts on the breasts for most of the original cast of Naruto.

Sasuke: Although impressively well endowed for a girl of her age, and certainly the proud owner of two cups full of potential, Hinata has yet to reach the apex of mammalian development. Her breasts are generous and womanly, putting the practicalities of gentle motherhood to the forefront of the mind, and while comforting, she lacks a certain ineffable pointedness to enter into the realm of sex kitten. In short, despite the condition of her body and the firmness of will in her mind, Hinata is tame. Ino rates barely noticeable, and then only because she is still budding as a young flower, and Sakura does not deserve consideration, except, of course, to dismiss her. Tenten is not bad, though she hides behind her clothing, denying me the chance to fully rate her, and Hinata has been less than forthcoming on Tenten's attributes. She has the eyes to see, but alas, she lacks the vocabulary to adequately convey the firmness of purpose or the shape of convictions. Truly, she is not a connoisseur. Among those older than ourselves, the jounin Kurenai has a pleasing proportion of breast size to body, though, sadly, the somewhat mannish cast of her facial attributes cools the desire to run through her valley. And seriously, what is up with that dress? The tokubetsu jounin, Anko, rates far higher. Generous portions, nicely round, and the decoration of her decolletage is without peer. I would love to know how she manages to have her armored mesh form so perfectly around her chest; usually it stretches between the luscious peaks and leaves a gap inside, giving one the impression of a single, if quite wide, mammary. Most kunoichi would use the resulting pocket to hide weapons, yet somehow Anko-san feels she can do without such a hiding place. Still, I am sure she has many more weapons secreted around her body, even more so than normal, and I would be keen to investigate both the nature of her impressively molded clothing and the replacement hiding places she has found for her weapons of bodily harm. Personally. Indeed, I am put in mind of a priceless treasure, surrounded by a chain link fence and guarded by a vicious but well bred canine. Ah, for the true pinnacle of human development, we need look no farther than the impressively weighted arguments of the legendary slug princess, the Sannin Tsunade. Though some might dismiss them as 'too big', if such a thing can be said to exist, and indeed somewhat ponderous and obeying the laws of gravity, the sentiment is both spurious and terribly flawed. For Tsunade's breasts are as the bosom of the moon itself. The moon is a stellar jewel, a great landscape that would dwarf a man as insignificant were the man to stand on its surface, yet with the proper distance, we can see it all at once, and it is made all the more gorgeous by its very inattainability. One might as well wish for the moon as wish for a loving embrace within the depths of the notoriously reticent goddess Tsunade. No, they are not meant for having, but they light up our lives when all is dark and we stare at the great pale globe when pensive. We write poetry about its beauty, we woo our merely mortal women beneath the soft light of their magnificence. And as the tugging of the moon in its many moods control the comings and goings of the tide, so, too, do we ebb and flow with the gravity of her big ol' titties. However, I have seen perfection in mortal form, and it belongs to the most unlikely of sources. A lie, but are illusions not what we construct to ward off those portions of our lives which we are uncomfortable looking at? Nay, perhaps they are of false origins, but they are no less compelling, and truth is what you make of it. Large, yet perky, with a rounded cone shape as if designed for speed, and lovely pink nipples set just high enough that they appear to be looking up at you, daring to meet your eyes. Skin many shades darker than the paleness in fashion, yet with a sun kissed health that unabashedly tells of uninhibited play in the fullness of the outdoors, thumbing the nose at the staid mediocrity of traditional authority, and whispering of wild, bestial romps through summer wildflowers. Nature's most unnatural fruits, all wrapped up in an orange peel. No, I have seen, marveled, and even touched perfection. Truly, I am blessed.