Naruto: A new chapter!

Menma: A new adventure.

Naruko: A new discovery!

Uzumaki Trio: A brand new world! Now let's get to it!

United I Stand
Chapter Four: The Trio's First Mission

"Naruko-chan, I think Menma hates me," Sakura said as she held up a lime green dress. "Is this good?"

"Nah too bright," Ino said with a disgusted frown.

After the fun sleepover the group had two weeks ago, Sakura had decided to keep up the fun by inviting her group of friends shopping. It was tough due to the training schedules and D-Rank missions they all had to do but Sakura was finally able to take her friends on a shopping spree and while she was having a blast, something had been on her mind...

And that someone was Uzumaki Menma.

Ever since the day they met, anytime she saw him, he wouldn't say a word. He would stare at her with these disappointed, cold eyes which made her soul shiver. She didn't know why he looked at her this way anytime she looked his way and it was starting to get to her but while it was bothering her, she didn't mean to blurt it out on their shopping day.

"What makes you think that Sakura-chan?" Naruko asked curiously, her eyes glancing at Hinata, who kept looking at her curiously.

"His gaze…It makes me feel…I don't know," Sakura said with a conflicted expression. "It's been bothering me since that the other day when I invited you to that sleepover two weeks back and anytime I see him, it just gets worse..."

"Perhaps he knows you or something?" Ino suggested.

"Perhaps," Sakura muttered. "Like, I didn't do anything wrong and insult him did I?"

"Well…You didn't ask for his name when you first met…But he's not petty like that," Naruko said.

Sakura then held up an orange dress and asked "What about this?"

"I like it," both Naruko and Hinata said in unison but while Naruko sounded confident, Hinata was more subdued. Hinata then turned her head and looked at Naruko with...was that suspicion?

Nah, Sakura was seeing things.

"Well of course you two like it," Ino said. "I mean you're wearing orange now like Naruto and Hinata has a thing for orange wearing boys."

"I-Ino-chan," Hinata whined with a blush but Ino winked at her.

"No worries. I won't spill the beans," Ino replied.

"What beans?" Naruko said with a clueless look.

Sakura smiled lightly before he lowered her head, her mind flashing back to Menma's face.

It was funny to her that while he looked like both Naruto and Naruko,that look in his eyes made him stand out to her that made her feel both ashamed of herself as well as drawn into them.

But why?

Sakura shook her head and muttered "It's nothing…" before she looked up to Naruko and asked "So Naruko-chan, how do you like Konoha?"

"It's…nice…" Naruko said after a pause. "I don't like how people are treating my brother Naruto however. They treat him like some sort of monster. Just the other day, I went to get some milk and I got chased out."

"Well, Naruto was a huge prankster up until you and Menma showed up. Maybe its due to that?" Ino suggested.

"I don't know but it seems like everyone hates him and doesn't want him around and when he is, they either try to beat him, chase him or ignore him. Doesn't that seem severe for just some pranks?" Naruko asked.

The three girls was silent but Sakura replied with "Actually...You're right. Naruto was super annoying and kept pestering me for dates when I was clearly not interested but ultimately, he was harmless but for years, Kaa-san told me to stay far away from him and I don't know why."

"M-My Okaa-sama wanted the same thing," Hinata murmured softly.

"My Kaa-san wanted me to hang out with him but I personally didn't want to," Ino admitted. "Not so much because I hated him but he was always so hyper and a lot of the time, it seemed force. If he was more true to himself, I would have been friends with him...But it's funny I say that now because two weeks back after we became genin, I bumped into him in the morning and something changed in him."

Sakura noticed that Hinata perked up and let a small smirk appear on her face.

"He seemed more subdued and more relaxed and there was this…confidence that was oozing out of him. It looked and felt so natural. Like this was the side of him that he always wanted to show... It was actually kind of hot and I never thought Naruto could be hot,"Ino admitted.

"H-Hot…" Hinata stammered out.

Naruko smirked and it was then Sakura remembered that this was his identical sister and suddenly a smirk appeared on her face. "So does that mean Naruko-chan is hot to you too, Piggy-chan?"

Ino blinked in surprise before a hot blush appeared on her face and said "A-Ah…Um…Shit, I forgot you're sister for a moment. Don't go telling Naruto that. He already has a big head cause I told him he was cute that one time."

Naruko gave an impish smirk and replied "I won't tell him but you didn't answer the question Ino-chan. Do you think I'm hot?"

Ino stammered as her blush deepened and muttered "Eat shit and die Haruno."

"Eat shit and live Yamanaka," Sakura said with a good natured smile.

Naruko snorted before she let out a loud laugh and Sakura had to admit, the laugh was cute. Naruko then paused and said "Oh shit, I have to run! Training time. I can't be late!"

"Catch you later Naruko-chan. Say hi to Naruto and Menma for me," Sakura said.

"Same for me!" Ino said.

Naruko nodded before she said "Bye you three!" and rushed out the store.

"S-Speaking of training…I must get going as well," Hinata said before she stood up and bowed to the two girls and rushed out as well.

"Later Hinata?" Sakura muttered.

"They rushed off quick. I wonder why," Ino said.

Sakura shrugged before she looked to Ino and said "So you told Naruto he was cute huh?"

"Hibana no Aoi Honō (Spark of the Blue Flame)!" Naruto shouted as he clapped his hands together, suddenly, two rings of cobalt blue flames exploded to live around his wrists and ankles, his eyes turning a royal blue color with a flicker of cobalt blue flames within them.

"Here I go!" Naruto exclaimed as he dashed forward, a trail of blue flames streaking behind him as he dashed towards a shadow clone of his. Naruto jumped forward and spun his body two rotations before he slammed his foot against the clone's face, causing it to explode in blue flames.

Naruto landed and launched himself forward and landed two rapid fire blows to the second clone's face, each blow causing a mini explosion of blue flames to burst against the face before Naruto turned around and said "It's done!" and landed a hard haymaker to the clone, causing it to explode into flames.

The flame rings around his wrist and ankles began to blink and Naruto said "Crap!" Before he clapped his hands and said "Hibana no Aoi Honō: Ringu no Shōkyaku (Spark of the Blue Flame: Ring of Incineration)!"

Naruto then spread his hands apart slowly as the flames around his wrists and ankles swirled into his palm and began to expand into a burning hot fire ring that stretched to Naruto's width and height.

With a shout, he launched the ring at a three clones and the minute the ring collided, the entire area exploded and the clones were nothing but dust and the ground beneath them was also scorched, with small pockets of blue flames burning.

"Whew…that looked brutal," Naruto said before he looked at his darkened and blistering hands, wrists and ankles. "Aw shit."

Menma stood on the far west side of the training site in a meditative state. "Tōketsu Hāto (Frozen Heart)" Menma muttered softly.

The air around him shimmered with frost before he murmured "Mehana no Kōri (Eyes of Ice)," he then opened his eyes, which revealed his right eye frozen over with icy blue chakra flowing from it.

He stood up clapped his hands together and said "Tsume no Nigai Shimo ((Claws of the Bitter Frost),"and a pair of ice gauntlets in the shape of fox claws formed around his hands.

Several of Menma's clones suddenly charged towards him.

The first clone was instantly stabbed in the chest by the frost covered claw before it froze over, which allowed Menma to grab the clone and launch it towards to other clones. He then ran forward and lunged his arms out repeatedly, causing the ice claws to pierce through the next two clones repeatedly, freezing them as well.

He twisted his body and kicked one icy clone to a group of clones to his right before he kicked the head off the second icy clone, which nailed another clone in the chest.

He then turned around leapt into the air and shouted "Burizādo Ejji (Blizzard Edge)!" He then twisted his body rapidly as the icy gauntlets left his hands and formed a large angle ring made of ice, which sliced through any of the clones that came in contact of sharp ring.

He then landed on the ground and turned around to see a clone running his way and smirked before he shouted "Tsumetai Bīmu (Freezing Beam)!" Menma's right eye began to glow before a beam of chakra shot out from it and encased the clone into a solid block of ice.

Menma blew out breath and the cold around him faded away, returning the air around him to a normal temperature but his hands still had a tinge of blue and they were numb. He then closed his right eye and grimaced as a frozen tear fell from it.

"Damn…" he swore softly.

"Bōfū Sōru (Hurricane Soul)!" Naruko exclaimed as her eyes took on platinum blue color as a faint sapphire blue aura of chakra flowed from her body.

Naruko leapt into the air and said "Kaze Suteppu (Breeze step)," and just as she was about to fall, she instead hovered in the air. She grinned and dashes from left to right through the air before she landed on the ground with a skid only to flip back into the air and shouted "Kūki Doriru (Air drill)!"

Naruko began to spin rapidly as the chakra swirled around her body before she shot down to the ground hard, which caused the earth to splinter beneath her feet with the wind slicing against the ground at the point of impact.

Naruko then back flipped away from the impacted ground before she leapt into the air with a twirl and hovered in the air. She gripped her right wrist with her left hand as she stuck out her thumb and index finger and shouted "Reppū Jūdan:Saisho Dangan (Gust Bullet: First shot)!"

Through her index finger, a shockwave of wind launched from it and slammed into the ground, causing a small sized crater within it.

She then landed on the ground and said "Now to work on my taijutsu. Tenohira no Soyokaze (Palm of the Soft Wind)!" with a burst of chakra, a faint shimmer of sapphire blue chakra flowed from her hands as she held them forward.

A shadow clone of Naruko walked to up to Naruko balled up her fist and threw a right jab, Naruko hand glided towards the fist and deflected it to the left, which caused a ripple against the clone's arm before it was forced from its feet and sent spinning down to the ground.

Another clone ran up behind Naruko and performed a roundhouse kick but Naruko turned around and caught clone's ankle with her left hand. Another ripple went through the clone before the clone was sent twirling into the air, where Naruko leapt up with a spin and of her body and kicked the clone to the ground hard

Naruko landed on the ground and swayed from left to right from two clones jabbing at her head before she lifted her palm to deflect one clone's wild haymaker, which slammed into the second clone's face, which sent that clone spiraling down to the ground.

The first clone turned around and threw another haymaker at Naruko but she ducked and slammed her palm into the clone's stomach, which sent it spiraling backwards into a tree where it dispersed.

The sapphire blue chakra faded away and Naruko stood upright and looked at her palms, which had slice marks on it and frowned. "It still hurts but it's coming along great…"

"Alright guys. How is the training?" Inoichi asked.

"It's coming along but the wind is still slicing up my palms and feet," Naruko said with a wince.

"Hands are numb and my right eye still feel cold but they are warming up," Menma said.

"Still rough on my end but I'm getting there as well," Naruto said. "You'd think after two weeks we should be able to do this without these bothersome injuries."

"All of you had shitty chakra control until I got my fine ass hands on you three, my little Guinea pigs," Anko said with a chuckle. "It'll take time. Plus, my cute dimwits, you three are studying forbidden techniques. You're lucky the Hokage allowed you bunch to keep the jutsu you copied down, especially after the last jutsu you three tried caused you three to exist in the first place."

The Uzumaki trio frowned at this.

When the Hokage found out about them learning and copying down a few more forbidden justu, he nearly tore their heads off but when he saw how far they had gotten, he allowed them to continue with the copied jutsu on the grounds that they could handle them and then gave them more techniques that were tied to the jutsus they already copied down.

The trio had a feeling that the Hokage was allowing this for more than the reasons he stated but they let it go, just to be glad to continue with what they have plus more.

"But considering these wounds are far better than the ones you all had at the start, you'll have these perfected in no time," Inoichi said with pride. "Now that your training is complete for the day, we have a mission."

"It's not Tora again is it?" Naruko asked with a frown.

Menma and Naruto smirked.

For some bizarre reason, that demon cat hated Naruko but adored Naruto and Menma and it drove Naruko mad.

"Don't smirk assholes, its not funny," Naruko growled out with a scowl on her face. "We're the same damn person! Why does that cat hate me but love you two?!"

"Relax Naruko, no Tora. The Hokage has given us a B-rank mission. We are to go to Takigakure no Sato," Inoichi explained.

"A B-Rank?! So soon?!" The three exclaimed in unison.

"I knew they'd freak," Anko said. "Yeah. It's a rescue mission. We are to find some girl named Fū. She was kidnapped by some rogue Jōnin of their village and none of the shinobi want to retrieve her weirdly enough."

"But why that rank?" Naruto asked.

"I bet it has something to do with Anko-sensei and Inoichi-sensei being our squad leaders, right?" Naruko asked.

"Exactly. Since there are two of us, the Hokage feels a B-rank would be more appropriate but still a safe one," Inoichi said. "So, do you three accept this mission?"

"Hell yeah we do!" The three shouted happily.

"I knew it," Anko said with a grin.

"But there is one more question I must ask…Is she cute?" Naruto asked.

"That's a pretty good question," Naruko asked. "Is she cute?"

Menma also looked interested in this.

Anko snorted and held out a picture of the person with a mumble of "Is she cute? I didn't realize a mission's importance relied on how cute our mission objective was."

The three looked at it but while Naruko and Menma nodded with an impressed look, Naruto felt himself stare at the picture.

'She looks beautiful…' Naruto thought.

'You think so?' Naruko thought back.

'Yeah. What do you think Menma? She look beautiful?' Naruto thought as he eyed Menma.

'I suppose she is,' Menma replied in thought with a wry grin. 'But keep it in your pants Naruto. She's for protecting. Besides, she could be another Sakura.'

Naruto and Naruko frowned at this.

'You hold a lot of resentment to Sakura-chan,' Naruto noted to Menma.

'Why shouldn't I?' Menma replied. 'We all did or did you two forget that when we separated?'

'We resented her for wanting to be with Sasuke so much,' Naruko replied. 'And we all agreed to let her do just that and leave her alone in that way. Why are you so angry with her still?'

'Just leave it be,' Menma thought before he said out loud "It's settled, let's save this girl."

"Good, we leave tomorrow so get prepared," Inoichi said before he and Anko disappeared in a flash of leaves, leaving the trio alone.

"I hate that she threw that stupid jutsu in our face," Menma said with annoyance.

"Well she had a point," Naruko said. "Us meddling with that jutsu did take us from one person to three. We should be more careful. It's a blessing we're allowed to continue learning deadly jutsu and Taijutsu like this."

"Yeah, yeah," Menma said with a scowl on his face. "It just bugs me. It happened, we screwed up. Screw ups happen but we learned from it and it will only make us better in the future."

"That's the spirit," Naruto said with a smile. "Besides, we're making the best of this. I mean, the worse is our shared life force. Other than that, we're doing great. We just have to keep positive and make the world know our names."

"But what about our dream of becoming Hokage?" Naruko asked. "Three people can't be the Hokage you know?"

"Then we'll have to change that," Naruto said.

"There's being positive and then there's being foolish," Menma said. "You think they're going to change the rules and make all three of us Hokage? You think we're that special?"

"I do," Naruto said. "Think about I-"

"No you think about it," Menma said angrily. "We were already disliked as a sole Naruto because of the Kyūbi being sealed in us and we were even stupid to think we could become Hokage then and now when there is three of us, you still think it's feasible?"

"I do," Naruto said with a stubborn frown. "Yeah this village doesn't like us and yeah, its because of bullshit that isn't our fault but you know what? This is our home and I'm not just going to roll over and die because they despise us. Nor will I give them the satisfaction of hating them. I'm…No…We are going to prove them wrong. We are more than the demon that we have inside of us. We are Uzumaki and we will earn respect."

Memna looked away and said "I still think its stupid."

"And yet you know that's what you want to," Naruto said with a smirk.

Menma chuckled and said "Yeah, yeah…"

"Hehe!" Naruto replied cockily.

"Well, with that argument done what should we do no-" Naruko was interrupted as a push shook violently, followed by some silence. "What was th-" Naruko was interrupted again as Naruto raised his hand to stop her, much to her eye-twitching annoyance.

Naruto crept up to the bush and without warning, he knelt down and pushed the leaves aside to see Hinata's unconscious body.

"Huh," Naruto said. "Well…This is something…"

Rain: and that is the end of this chapter. So A new mission is starting out with rescuing Fū and Hinata may know the Trio's secret but what will happen in the next chapter? Only one way to find out!

Naruko: Bye bye!