Ino and Kiba were exhausted by the end of the day. Naruto had showed them where two other chunin teams were and they had to defeat them to get the matching scrolls without Naruto's help because he had disappeared during their fight. It took them so long that they barely had time to walk a mile before it got dark. When they came upon a clearing Naruto turned and stopped them by saying, "I think we should camp out here."

"What makes you the boss?" hissed Ino.

"The fact that both of you are so exhausted that you could faint at any moment," answered Naruto as he lowered himself to the ground.

"We wouldn't be if you had just helped us fight those chunin," growled Kiba stubbornly remaining standing.

"I figured I'd just get in the way since I am the lowest of the low," shrugged Naruto, "You're welcome to keep moving if you want, but if either of you faint I am not carrying you anywhere."

Ino immediately sat down not wanting to ruin her hair by fainting somewhere in the forests. "So we're camping here?"

"Yes," answered Naruto, "If you guys wait here I'll go get some firewood and water."

When Naruto was no longer in sight Kiba sat down and said, "I think we should ditch him."

"Why?" asked Ino.

"It's Naruto," Kiba said as though it was obvious, "He'll just hold us back in the future. Like before when he ran away to hide while we fought the chunin by ourselves."

"I don't know Kiba," said Ino skeptically, "I think that we're missing something about Naruto."

"Yea right," laughed Kiba.

"You wouldn't understand Kiba," Ino shook her head, "You're jutsu focuses on dogs so you don't understand much about humans. I, on the other hand, focus on the mind and I think that there's something that we're missing."

"You're just over thinking this Ino," said Kiba, "It doesn't take a Yamanaka to see into Naruto's mind. It's completely blank."

"On the contrary," said Naruto appearing behind Kiba making him jump, "Ino's actually very perceptive and unlikely to over think things when she's not being a fangirl."

"When did you get here?" asked Kiba.

"Just now," answered Naruto putting down his canteen of water and the large sticks he had found, "but I forgot to warn you that I have very good hearing and heard your whole conversation." He sat down and began making a circle of rocks and then placing the sticks inside of them to make a fire pit.

"We have started to set up camp," Naruto said within his mind.

"So have we," answered Sakura.

"How long do you think it will take you to get to our tree?" asked Sasuke.

"I don't know," answered Naruto, "These two don't have a constant speed so I can't calculate how fast we can move."

"That's alright," said Sakura, "Sasuke's been pushing us to move quickly so we'll have time to rest if you don't make it there at the same time we do."

"I think someone's following us," said Sasuke as a way to defend himself.

Naruto frowned, "Just be careful you guys. We don't know when Orochimaru will attack."

"What's wrong Naruto?" asked Ino pulling him away from the conversation in his thoughts.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You all of a sudden started frowning," she answered.

"Oh," said Naruto, "Don't worry about it. I just thought of something that troubled me." He looked around at their campsite to find that they were the only two there. "Where's Kiba?"

"He went to the bathroom," answered Ino, "You must have been pretty out of it because I yelled at him for trying to go in front of us. I mean he's not a dog."

Naruto laughed at that just as Kiba came back with a big smile. Before Kiba could do anything Naruto was tackling him to the ground. In a mere moment he was pinned to the forest floor with Naruto sitting on top of him. "What the hell?" screamed Kiba.

"You smell different," answered Naruto.

"What?" asked Kiba.

"You don't smell like Kiba. Being a dog user, or at least copying a dog user, you should have known that already," said Naruto as he pulled out a kunai and launched it into the bushes on his right, "Why on earth did you come alone?"

"How did you know I came alone when you guys are already with your group?" asked the Kiba look alike.

"We aren't part of the same group," answered Naruto as he pulled out another kunai and held it to the Kiba look alike's throat, "and you just told me that you were alone."

Just then Kiba came barging through the bushes from the direction that Naruto had thrown his first kunai. "You damn bastard!" he screamed, "How dare you tie me up!"

"Now now Kiba," said Naruto looking up at him, "This is your own fault for not paying attention to your surroundings."

"How dare you talk to me like that!" yelled Kiba tackling Naruto off of his look alike.

The look alike got up and launched himself toward Ino only to be stopped by Naruto who had pushed Kiba off of him. "You idiot!" growled Naruto, "You could have gotten Ino killed by attacking me. If I hadn't been fast enough I wouldn't have been able to stop this guy," he turned to the rain ninja allowing his anger to show in his eyes by making them into slits like a fox, "and you better get the heck out of here before I kill you."

"Give me your scroll and I'll be gone," answered the rain ninja bravely. Naruto's only answer was to swipe his kunai against the ninja's front, but the ninja jumped back so there was only a small scratch. "You missed idiot," he said, but then he began to cough up blood as the wound slowly grew deeper and deeper.

"I used my wind chakra to attack you with so there was no way I could have missed that," said Naruto, "You should have left when I told you to. You probably won't die from that wound if you get it treated, but you never know how many predators in these woods are attracted to the scent of blood or how good their sense of smell is."

"Damn you!" yelled the rain ninja as he retreated into the forest.

Sasuke sat at the campfire just outside of the three tents watching its blaze flicker in and out before he stirred it to make it come alive again. He heard the rustling of one of the tents and then some footsteps coming towards him. "What are you doing out here?" he asked.

"I can't sleep," answered Sakura as she sat next to him. "All this background noise is making it so that I can't sleep. I guess we won't be getting any sleep until we meet up with Naruto right?"

"Seems that way," answered Sasuke nodding his head, "I even picked Shino to sleep in the same tent as me because he's so quiet, but his bugs aren't."

"Sasuke," asked Sakura when she saw Sasuke look around at the dark shadows within the forest, "Do you really think someone is following us?"

"Yes," answered Sasuke, "He's staying just outside of your chakra barrier, but mine's a bit larger than yours so I can sense him."

"Him?" asked Sakura.

Sasuke nodded again, "I'm pretty sure it's Orochimaru. I can't be certain though because his chakra signature changes every time he changes bodies and he doesn't have the same body that I got used to him with."

"I really hope you're wrong," said Sakura. "Should we tell Naruto? I think he'll freak out if he's not here when Orochimaru attacks."

"No," was Sasuke's immediate answer, "I don't want him there. He'll do everything he can to make it so that we don't get hurt and that means that he will. I don't want Orochimaru to hurt him again."

"Sasuke," sighed Sakura, "I don't think us not telling him will make it so that he doesn't get hurt." Sasuke looked at her with a pleading look in his eye, though to anyone who might have seen the scene would say that he had not emotion whatsoever on his face. "but I won't tell Naruto because I don't want him to get hurt either."

She smiled at Sasuke and he smiled back with a little quirk of his lips that would have been missed if she hadn't been looking for it and then they both went back to watching the fire flicker in the wind.

Naruto awoke the next morning at dawn and began making breakfast for his two traveling companions before he even woke them up. Kiba was the first to emerge from his deep slumber. He was drawn to the smell of bacon that Naruto had so conveniently packed. Then Ino came out with a rat's nest in her hair that could have only been an effect of bed head. Naruto had to hold back his snicker at this. He handed them their food and then went into the tent that he and Kiba had shared.

A few moments later Naruto came back out holding a brush in his hand. "Do you mind if I brush your hair?" he asked Ino. She looked at the brush suspiciously before giving the same look to Naruto. "It's Sakura's brush," said Naruto, "Not mine and I can assure you that Sakura doesn't have lice. And don't worry I won't mess up your hair. I do Sakura's all the time." Ino gave one last suspicious look before nodding her head slowly and turning back to her food.

Naruto smiled and moved to kneel behind her since she was on a log and he wouldn't have been able to reach the top if he sat down. He undid the ribbon that kept her hair up in a ponytail and began to brush her hair starting from the bottom of her long locks and working his way up to get rid of the rat's nest in her hair.

Naruto had learned to do Ino's hair soon after he learned how to do Sakura's. It was because Ino kept asking Sakura where she had gotten her hair done that Sakura told Ino and Naruto began to do her hair as well.

"As interesting as it is to watch two girls do each other's hair I'm bored," said Kiba as Naruto finished with Ino's hair and put it back in the ponytail.

"Well," answered Naruto as he got up and wiped the dirt off his white pants using a bit of chakra to make sure that his shirt got completely clean, "If you help me pack up everything then we can get a move on and maybe meet up with the rest of the group by the evening."

Kiba grunted and grumbled as the three of them began to pack up the tents and any supplies that were left out. Once Naruto had put everything away inside of his scroll, which connected to the area that team 7 used to store any necessary equipment for traveling was, they set off to meet up with.

When they arrived at the tree they found Shino, Hinata, Chouji, and Shikamaru facing a giant snake. Naruto was the first to react as he launched himself toward the creatures head. He was quick and no one saw him move until he was already on the snake's head stabbing a kunai into the slitted eye.

The snake began to thrash from side to side as it tried to get Naruto off of its head and the kunai out of its eye, but Naruto used his chakra to attach to the snake so that he wouldn't fall off. After a few moments he pulled out the kunai and thrust it into the other eye. The snake banged its head against whatever it could. The ground. The trees. Anything to get Naruto off of it, but still Naruto did not move. Finally the snake fell dead to the ground with wooden splinters sticking out of its head.

Naruto jumped off of the creature and went to the other two teams that were staring at him in shock. Shino, Hinata, Chouji, and Shikamaru were all injured so Naruto went to them and began to look them over. After confirming that they hadn't been poisoned he began to heal them with his chakra.

Shikamaru's eyes widened as he saw this. "You know how to heal people?" he asked knowing that that ability was highly advanced.

"Sakura taught me," answered Naruto, "I'm not nearly as good as her, but she isn't always there when someone gets injured so she taught Sasuke and me the basics of healing jutsu. We can really only heal cuts and bruises, but that's a great thing to be able to do when the cut could cause someone to bleed to death." Shikamaru nodded as everyone else processed this information. "What happened?" asked Naruto, "Where are Sakura and Sasuke?"

"We had just arrived when Sasuke freaked out and ran off into the woods," answered Chouji, "Sakura told us to stay here and that we would probably be safe here and then she followed him."

"I don't think they knew that a snake would come and attack us," said Shikamaru, "Now I know what Sakura was talking about when she said there were dangerous creatures here."

"That thing," growled Naruto, "was a summoning by a very bad man who wanted to kill you." His voice gained a touch of urgency when he said, "Tell me which way they went!"

Shino pointed in a direction and Naruto told them to stay there before creating a chakra barrier to keep dangers out and following Sasuke and Sakura hoping that he wasn't to late.

wow this took a lot longer to write than i meant it to. oh well here's the next chapter. enjoy