A/N: Damn… something happened to the fic… when I created the story, it didn't come out in the Naruto-fic category. In fact, I couldn't find it at all… :'( But after editing it and reposting, it came out somewhere on page 8 or 9. Grrr… but anyway, anyone know how to make the asterisks come out? When I typed in the asterisks-star-thing, it didn't appear on the page when I previewed previous chapter…
I'll just reinforce something:
"Dialogue"
'Thought'
Stressing on the word
Chapter 2: Eavesdropping - A Reliable Source for Information
It was the next day and Naruto was walking around behind the school, a place where almost no one hung around. He had been looking for his two teammates but Sasuke was no where to be found and Sakura was too busy looking for Sasuke to bother with Naruto. So he grudgingly had to have lunch by himself. The worse part was that he had no lunch to have by himself in the first place. He was starving and was actually hoping to pinch some food off his two friends. But now he had to go hungry. He sighed and sat down under a tree, engaging himself in the deserted scenery and hoping that perhaps concentrating on the environment may take some of the hunger away.
Concentrating on the environment caused Naruto to feel a slight tingle of charka present nearby, and he looked around warily.
"Hey."
"Ack!!" Naruto jumped up in shock. He looked up at the direction the voice came from, and saw Sasuke sitting at the corner of a branch of the tree with a foot dangling down.
Sasuke hushed him, "Can't you be a little less noisy?"
With a single leap, Naruto was up on the branch next to Sasuke and said in the same loud voice, "Hey, what the hell are you doing up here?"
"I'm enjoying some personal quiet time alone. Or at least I was."
Naruto raised a brow, "Reeaally… or otherwise, escaping your ever nauseating crowd of fangirls that never cease to be on your tail?"
That was precisely the reason Sasuke was seeking refuge in the lone tree, but the dark-haired boy didn't change his expression. The spot Sasuke had chosen to hide was quite effective, being at the back of the school where hardly anyone goes, and the tree was very thick with its springtime leaves. He was very well hidden and hence Naruto had failed to see him there at first.
Naruto felt hiss stomach rumble and looked up at Sasuke, grinning, "Hey, I'm really glad I found you, pal, cuz…"
Sasuke threw his lunch at Naruto, who gleefully accepted it, "Aren't you hungry?"
'If you read the same notes from girls that I had read just now, you wouldn't be hungry either.' "No." Sasuke simply replied.
Naruto shrugged and dug in.
Sasuke suddenly stiffened and Naruto stopped eating. Sasuke had started crawling around the thick trunk of the tree, and toward the source from which some soft voices were coming from. He was perfectly silent and furtive, and Naruto competitively felt compelled to be able to move with as much stealth as the other boy. He followed suit, stepping in the same places as Sasuke, and soon both of them were atop a branch right above two people who had just arrived.
Naruto wasn't sure about how Sasuke kept so silent, but he was holding his breath. Breathing may give them away, and Naruto wasn't about to get both of them in trouble of any sort - that is, if they would get in trouble for eavesdropping. Sasuke had seemed a little on the edge lately, as if something was going to happen, and most of the time, the number one rookie was right.
Naruto looked down and realized the couple was two of the four new substitutes.
"Kidoumaru, have you done what you had to?" The female sub said.
"Yes, Tayuya." The sub with six arms whom Naruto had bumped into at the start of yesterday replied. "I've invited that fat slob to come to the hall later after school. Just to try the stuff out. He was over the moon. Didn't hesitate to say yes and didn't suspect a thing."
"Good." Tayuya smiled, a very wicked sort of smile that sent shivers down Naruto's back. "I just love surprises."
The two subs walked off in different directions, and Sasuke and Naruto stayed quiet for a while until they felt it was finally safe to talk.
"W-what was that all about?" Naruto stammered. He had no idea why he was so freaked out. The contents of the conversation he had overheard wasn't even bloodcurdling enough to send Hinata into shock, but somehow, the way the female substitute, Tayuya, had spoken, was just plain scary.
Sasuke, if sharing the same fear as him, showed no sign of it, but seemed to be deep in thought. "Test what out? On what fat slob?"
Naruto suggested, "Maybe the fat sub? The one who was pushing a trolley and whom I crashed into? Hmm… how come I keep crashing into so many people anyway…"
Sasuke ignored Naruto's afterthought and said, "The sub? I was thinking of him. Are these two teachers planning something against him?"
"I know!" Naruto exclaimed in an excited tone, "I know! I know! I bet these two teachers are gonna test something out on the fat sub and… OH!"
Sasuke raised an eyebrow.
"I have got it!" Naruto was standing up on the branch now with a finger pointing high into the air, "Those two subs are mice leaders, and they found out that the fat sub was determined to wipe them and their micey-minions out with the mice-traps we saw! So they're gonna get him first before he gets them!!" Naruto panted heavily, proud of his fantastic elucidation. (And by 'fantastic', I mean 'fantasy-like', not 'marvelous' or 'great'.)
Sasuke just sat there and stared up at him. "Right… let's just go to the school hall at the end of school and see just what's the lovely surprise."
---
The bell rang, signaling the end of school, and the students of the Hidden Leaf Academy were on their way home, rushing out the school doors. Sasuke and Naruto purposely took their times packing their school bags. Their teacher, Sakon/Ukon, had left the room without the slightest thought about them. Sasuke slung his bag over his shoulder and walked out the classroom and quickly down the corridor towards the hall, and Naruto rushed to catch up.
The hall was after the next corner and Sasuke was about to turn in when he stopped in his tracks, causing Naruto to bump into him, "Dammit… why do I keep crashing into people??" Naruto softly winced.
The female sub, Tayuya, was walking to the hall entrance from the opposite side of the passageway, and to avoid getting seen, Sasuke had stopped behind the corner. However, Naruto's soft voice hadn't gone unheard by her, and she was suspiciously making her way toward them now.
Sasuke mentally cursed, and looked around for somewhere to hide. Nothing was in sight. Naruto tugged at his sleeve and grinned, pointing upward. Sasuke looked up to see the wire mesh of a vent, its bottom screws missing.
-
Tayuya looked over the corner, but there was nobody there. She glanced around before shrugging and walking back into the hall, passing the noise she heard off as her own imagination.
-
"Just how do you know about the mapping of the ventilation system?" Sasuke asked as he crawled behind Naruto, although he thought he already had an idea of just how Naruto had become an expert.
"Just say that you've just been let in on my secret as to how I have an endless supply of teachers' candies." Naruto sniggered softly.
Sasuke shook his head. So it was Naruto's fault the entire school had to stay behind during lunch one day because the teachers couldn't find the candies they used to reward the younger students.
"Hey, we gotta talk real soft, cuz being a ventilation system, our voices will easily travel throughout the airways and everyone will hear us." Naruto said.
"I know that." Sasuke replied a-matter-of-factly.
"Sheesh, can't you at least let me pretend I'm smarter than you?" Naruto grumbled.
The two boys crept silently toward another ventilation passage which was a lot larger, with room to spare for both of them to crawl side by side. This large passage branched out into another few airways that were as small as the one they were previously in, but only one was as large as the one they were currently in.
Sasuke pointed at the large airway and whispered, "I'm guessing that's the passage to the hall?"
Naruto looked at him incredulously, "How the hell did you know?"
Sasuke hated talking and really wasn't in the mood to explain, but he did it anyway, "It's obvious. The hall is meant to contain the entire school for assembly, so with so many people in it, it's gonna need a large ventilation system to provide enough fresh air for everyone."
Naruto mumbled "Yea, I knew that too." although he had actually found out purely by exploration and discovery.
They quickly came to the end of the airway and to another mesh, at which on the other side was the hall. The hall consisted of a large space with rows of seats where the students were to be seated, and at the side walls of the hall were rows of chairs, each diagonally positioned for the teachers to have a good view of the stage. The stage was up at the front of the hall, a three feet high platform on which teachers spoke and made announcements and students did plays. The two boys peered through the metal wires, and being high up at the side of the wall close to the front of the hall, they could see almost everything.
Inside the hall was Tayuya tapping her foot impatiently, and Kidoumaru, who was sitting on the stage with his legs dangling off it, a pair of arms with palms down behind him for balance, and the other two pairs folded across his chest. Sasuke noticed a few chocolate bars and wrapped pieces of candy next to him.
Their form teacher, Sakon/Ukon, walked in. Sakon had on a strangely scary smile on his face, and although Sasuke couldn't see Ukon, he could imagine the same smile he probably had.
-
Naruto suddenly realized that Sakon/Ukon wasn't as hunched as he thought they were. Maybe it was just that time he was late that they were huffed up, but now they were walking toward the stage with quite a straight posture. When Sakon/Ukon were at the front of the stage and had turned so that both faces were visible, Naruto realized, with closer observation, that the two brothers had a slight effeminate look about them, although there was also an inexplicable ugliness about it.
Then came in the fat sub. He walked to the front of the stage, and Naruto held his breath in anticipation. But all that happened was Kidoumaru greeting him with, "Hey Jiroubou."
Naruto looked in confusion. 'Aren't the mice leaders gonna do something to the rat-eliminator?'
-
Sasuke's mind was working on a different level, 'They're not doing anything to him. I had a feeling that fat sub was in on it too. If it's not him, then it must be…'
-
Naruto thought hard, 'Fat slob… what other fat slob is there in the school?' Then his eyes widened in stunned realization, as someone stepped through the hall entrance.
'Chouji!'
---
A/N: Ok, review please - just to let me know how I'm going.
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