8: Naruto Gets Beat Up. Twice.

"What are you doing, Ino-pig?!" Sakura exclaimed. Everyone froze.

"You!" Ino exclaimed, letting go of whoever she had been fighting with. "What are you doing here?!"

"Why are you attacking my teammate?!" Sakura exclaimed. She walked over to where Chouji and Shikamaru had been attacking Naruto, and dragged the poor, heavily bruised boy away from him. "We're in the middle of a mission—stop trying to sabotage us, Ino-pig!"

Ino flared. "WE'RE on a mission, TOO," she blazed. "But THIS IDIOT destroyed an entire day's work!"

"Didn't look like you were doing much," Naruto muttered past his bleeding lip.

"Ah man," Chouji whined, nursing his injured head. "Now we'll have to start from the beginning."

"Hell no!" Ino shouted. "THEY'RE going to weed the garden FOR us. And they're going to rake the leaves!"

Sakura stamped her foot angrily. "We don't have time to weed or rake! We have to find those kids! Naruto, where'd they go?!"

But Ino wasn't about to be ignored. She cursed under her breath as she pulled out a mass of shuriken to toss at her rival when she felt her hand grabbed and pulled back.

"Bastard, what—"

"Ah!" Sakura cried in glee, "Sasuke-kun! You finally caught up!"

Sasuke glared down at Ino, who blushed at the contact. "Aah… oi… Sasuke-k-kun…"

"Geez," Sasuke grumbled, shaking the shuriken out of her hands. "You guys are so irritating." He looked down at Naruto, noted the numerous bruises and cuts that decorated his body and snorted. "Looks like you've already been taken out. By a bunch of bums, no less."

Naruto glared.

"Thanks for saving me, Sasuke-kun!" Sakura called. "…But why aren't you wearing a shirt?"

"Shut up," Sasuke said irritably, hoping no one saw the specks of pink in his hair. "Weren't we supposed to be tracking down those annoying brats?"

"Aahh… e-eto…"

"Actually," Shikamaru said, cutting in, "We were just discussing how exactly Naruto would repay us for ruining a complete day's work."

"…What did he do now," Sasuke said, shooting a nasty glare to Naruto, who tried to glare back despite the nasty bruise over his right eye.

"We don't have time for this!" Sakura cried. "I'm going after those two—Naruto can work out all the details."

With that, she sprinted away, much to Ino's frustration. Sasuke looked back at Chouji and Shikamaru and gave them an appraising look.

"You'd better go too," Shikamaru said wearily. "I don't want my ass kicked."

"Good decision," said Sasuke, and he took off as well.

"SHIKAMARU!" Ino cried. "What was that?!"

Chouji began to nod in agreement with Shikamaru. "He would've totally owned us."

Ino slapped her forehead. "Our team sucks."

As this exchange was going on, Naruto tried to surreptitiously drag his injured body after his teammates. However, Ino wasn't so easy on him.

"You're raking," she snarled, shoving the rake into his face.

"And weeding," Chouji added. "We're going to go eat some yakisoba."

"NO WE'RE NOT!" Ino cried. "We're going AFTER Sakura to make sure she doesn't make any moves on Sasuke!"

"What, worried that she'd succeed?" Shikamaru asked snidely. Ino promptly slapped him on the head.

"We're going and that's final," she said. "Stop crying, Chouji. We'll eat later with Asuma-sensei, because he said he'd treat us."

And then they left, leaving a puzzled Naruto holding a rake. He then began to dolefully rake, cursing his entire team, especially Sasuke. He did this after a few minutes, until realization struck him.

"What the hell am I doing?!" he cried. He threw down the rake and began to run after everyone else when suddenly, he felt his collar grabbed. He was jerked backwards and onto the floor.

"What the hell?!" he cried, looking behind him. "What do YOU guys want?!"

Kiba and Shino towered ominously over Naruto. Akamaru let out a particularly nasty growl on the top of Kiba's head.

"Well, Na-ru-to," Kiba said, pounding his fist into his other hand to accentuate every syllable. "We came to return something to you. Hinata! The bucket!"

"A-a-ano—"

"I brought it," Shino said, lifting up a large bucket. Drops of bright pink fluid dribbled down the edges in a terrifying manner. Although Naruto could not see Shino's mouth from behind his large collar, he was certain that he was wearing an extremely large (and evil) grin.

"Shino, hold him down."

Naruto let out a piteous wail.

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Coming up...

9: Clones
"Shut up," Sasuke said, glaring. "I've had enough of these games.

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