A/N: Ahh!! Reviews at last!! No errors occurred with the posting of the chapter!! Yayz! Thanks for the reviews, my dear… kofftwokoff… reviewers!! Makes me really happy!! {tears pour out from eyes}

Frontier of Darkness!! May I call you FOD? Thanks so much for that uplifting review of yours!! On ur 'fav stories' list? I'm honored. And I left a review of gratitude back at your own fic - Quest of the Green Beast. I think I fell in love with it at first read… {sighs dreamily}

Ok people, enjoy!

Chapter 3: Go for the Greedy

Naruto was about to scream at Chouji to get out, but Sasuke's hand clamped over his mouth and pulled him away from the wire mesh. Naruto's hand was squeezing Sasuke's wrist tight enough to stop the blood flow, but he wasn't fighting it off. In fact, he forcefully pressed the hand against his lips to stop any noise from coming out if his teeth decided to let go of his tongue.

At the front of the stage, Chouji was smiling as he walked toward the subs, a little warily, but the sight of Kidoumaru waving a chocolate bar made his face light up.

"Hi there, Chouji, was it?"

"Yes sensei!" Chouji eyed the chocolate bar hungrily.

"Remember how I told you that you were doing very well in your classes?" Kidoumaru asked.

"Yes, I remember, sensei."

Naruto kept biting his tongue. He knew Chouji wasn't exactly the brightest pupil in class. It was obvious the sub was lying.

"Here's your reward." Kidoumaru threw the chocolate bar at Chouji.

Naruto was desperate to yell at Chouji to get out of the room, but he noticed that Sakon/Ukon had locked the hall entrance doors. If he made any noise, the subs may just come for him and Sasuke, so it was pointless to do anything.

-

Sasuke was dying to push Naruto off himself. When he had pulled the blonde boy back from the mesh toward himself, Naruto's left elbow was resting heavily on Sasuke's left thigh, and the pain of Naruto's sharp elbow digging into his leg was excruciating. But he didn't want to let go of Naruto's mouth in case the boy carelessly made any noise. He looked over Naruto's head to observe just what was going to happen.

Chouji was cramming the chocolate bar into his mouth without a second thought. Nothing happened to Chouji at first, and he smiled and said, "Thank you sensei!" before starting to make his way out.

Sasuke waited for something to happen.

Chouji was halfway to the entrance doors when he suddenly stopped.

Sasuke felt Naruto jerk to prevent himself from breathing in sharply.

Chouji stumbled and murmured, "Sensei… I don't feel too well…" and he fell onto one knee before leaning forward with his hands on the ground.

Sasuke thought the boy was going to spew, but Chouji started shaking very violently. It all took about half a minute, and Sasuke could see everything that happened. Chouji started shaking even harder, before he started shrinking. Sasuke's eyes widened as he watched the spectacle. Chouji's form became smaller and smaller, and his entire body started to distort itself. He could see Chouji's arms starting to move toward the front, and his knees divided into two joints. His head was changing its shape, and hair was growing everywhere. A tail shot out from his rear end, and his clothes hung looser and looser. Soon, there was nothing to be seen of him but a pile of clothes.

Sakon/Ukon walked toward the pile of clothes and stepped onto any small lumps that they could see. Then a small squeak was heard and a small hairy brown ball rolled out from the pile of clothes. Sasuke's sensitive eyes allowed him to see it was a mouse. A round, fat mouse that carried itself with four small feet. The mouse ran to the nearest hole it could find, which was a mouse hole at the side of a wall, and jumped into it.

"Kill it!" Tayuya yelled. Sakon/Ukon made a dash for it, and Sasuke saw that the mouse which was Chouji was too fat to get into the hole, and was stuck there. Sakon/Ukon ran toward him and pulled out a kunai to end the mouse's life. Before the dagger could touch him, Chouji had sucked in his gut and plopped through the hole and into the other side of the wall, and the kunai was left there, sticking out at the entrance of the mouse hole.

"Damn." Ukon said.

"Ah, who cares." Kidoumaru said. "The fat rat will stay that way for the while and will die eventually. Haha… get it? Fat rat? Ha! Damn, I crack myself up…"

Sakon rolled his eyes and said, "At first I thought this plan of the boss's was just plain stupid, but now, I think it may just be the best. No one will guess where the kids are and what happened to them."

"And all kids do like candy, don't they?" Ukon added in an evil sort of voice.

"The chocolate bar we just used had a drop of the first batch of potion supply." Tayuya said, "Boss said we'll have to try out the second batch. Kidoumaru, find some other kid greedy enough to believe whatever we say."

"Always me… why don't you do something for once?"

Tayuya shot a glare at him.

"Alright, alright!" Kidoumaru decided it was best not to anger the woman. "I'll be looking around during lunchtime tomorrow."

-

Naruto watched the teachers collect Chouji's clothes and leave the hall, locking the entrance doors after themselves, and Sasuke finally took his hand off Naruto's mouth and hastily pushed him off.

"Shit… what was that…" Naruto stammered.

He looked at Sasuke, who was rubbing a bruise on his thigh. "Oh… sorry…" And then he saw blood covering Sasuke's palm. "You're bleeding? Hey, no way my elbow could pierce your skin…"

"It's not my blood, you idiot." Sasuke tried moving his limp leg, "It's yours."

Naruto wiped the back of his hand over his mouth and saw it  was covered with a mixture of his own blood and saliva. He had bitten his tongue so hard it had started bleeding. "Oh."

Sasuke turned around and started crawling back, the blood in his leg beginning to circulate. Naruto hurriedly crawled behind him, still shaken by the incident. "I… what… what on earth was that? Where's Chouji?"

"Don't know." Was all Naruto got from his teammate. They reached the end of the airway they had first entered at the start, and climbed out.

Naruto took a huge gulp of fresh air and allowed himself to pant as heavily as he wanted.

"Shouldn't we stay and look for Chouji?" Naruto asked, a hint of shock still evident in his voice.

"No. They locked the hall doors. We can't get in." Sasuke said, breathing heavily himself.

"Chou… Chouji's a… mouse…" Naruto said, as if trying to convince himself.

"Look, Naruto. Don't say anything about this to anyone. First of all, they wouldn't believe us, and secondly, the subs may find out we know a lot of things we're not meant to."

Naruto slowly nodded.

The two boys ran out the school from the back way so that they would avoid any unwanted confrontations from any sub, and as they walked back, they planned what they were going to do the next day.

---

"Oh YES!!!" Naruto yelled in excitement, "FOOD TIME!!!"

He sat down at the cafeteria with the other students and started stuffing himself with his lunch. "MAN, I LOVE FOOD. I CAN EAT EVERYTHING!!" He exclaimed loudly.

"We know, Naruto." Sakura said, her annoyance obvious.

"You don't have to be so loud about it." Shikamaru said in his usual bored voice.

Naruto kept digging greedily into his food.

"Anyone know where Chouji is?" Ino asked.

Naruto paused for a split second, but quickly continued eating.

"Maybe he decided he was too hungry for school and went to some all-you-can-eat buffet." Shika mused.

"Second helping!!!" Naruto called out and dug in.

Ino shook her head, "Just how much can you eat?"

-

Without moving his head, Sasuke looked at the entrance of the cafeteria from the corner of his eye and could see a certain six-armed man watching their table. The plan was working.

"Numbah THREE!!!" Naruto called out again.

Naruto was doing quite well, and Sasuke saw the sub smile and walk away.

Sasuke gave a slight nod to Naruto, who grinned and finished off the rest of his lunch.

Now all they had to do was wait for the sub to make a move.

---

It was the end of lunch and everyone was going back to class. The next teacher was Kidoumaru. 'Perfect.' Thought Naruto.

As they entered the class, the teacher was leaning against the wall outside the class, waiting for all the students to get in. "Ah, you!" He called to Naruto.

Naruto looked behind him and pointed to himself, earning a nod from the sub. Naruto looked into the classroom, where Sasuke already inside and had turned around and given a reassuring nod.

Naruto walked up to the teacher and smiled his foxy smile, "Yes sensei?"

"Your name, boy?"

"Naruto! Uzumaki Naruto!"

"And you love eating, right?"

"Hai, sensei!"

"Then you love chocolate and candy?"

"Of course sensei! Don't all kids?"

"GOOD! - I mean, that's… nice. Yes, it's great you kids love candy. Well, I have free candy with me. You want some?"

"Yes sensei!" Naruto put on a very greedy look in his eyes.

"Ok, you'll have to meet me after this class, in the cafeteria, ok?"

Naruto appeared overjoyed, "Thank you sensei!!" 'After this class? Why not after school?' He thought.

They entered the class and Naruto went to his seat.

Naruto smiled inwardly. He thought the plan he and Sasuke… ok, so maybe just Sasuke… came up with the day before was fantastic. He was a little apprehensive about being the bait and all, but with Sasuke saying that he'll back him up, he felt a little better. Along with the bonus of him getting to stuff himself with three helpings of food during lunch, how could he back down? All he had to do later when he receives the chocolate bar is ask the teacher to try it first, just to see their reaction. Sasuke will be somewhere armed with a camcorder.

But now he was a little confused about why he was invited to take it after class and not after school. There were two classes after lunch before school ended, and the one he was in now was the first of the two. The answer came to him before he could make one up himself.

"Class," Kidoumaru announced, "Today after school there will be a candy fair. Not really a fair, but free candy for all."

The class launched into a series of noisy and excited bickers.

Naruto's eyes widened in horrified realization. The subs were going to poison the whole school! So even if he and Sasuke did do something about the situation, it'll be too late to get any evidence at all to the Hokage. He looked at Sasuke, who was looking down at his desk in a very serious manner, as if thinking about what to do next.

The class was noisy now, and the teacher didn't seem to care. Kidoumaru just sat down and was reading some book. Some students had gotten up from their seats and went over to other students to chat, so Naruto hopped over to Sasuke.

"I'm meeting him after this class."

Sasuke didn't move his head.

"What are we gonna do now?" Naruto asked anxiously.

"Just go on with the plan."

Naruto couldn't think of any alternative. It was best to do just that.

-

Sakura looked at Naruto and Sasuke. She could guess that something was obviously going on. But she knew that she'd probably be shunned off if she did ask about it. The boys didn't seem to want to talk about it anyway.

Her mind floated on to thoughts about the candy fair later on that day. She loved sweets, and she was desperately hoping most of the other students were going too. Well, at least a certain raven-haired student that is in her team. But did Sasuke even like candy? He didn't seem like the type. He looked more like a… protein person… Someone that was set on building up on muscles in anyway possible. Most of the other guys seemed like protein people too. Like Neji and Rock Lee and… a whole lot of others. So far, Naruto and Chouji were the few that liked everything.

"Poor Chouji." Sakura heard Ino's voice, "He's gonna miss out on all the candy." Somehow, Ino didn't sound too sad for the said boy.

"Is everyone going?" The teacher suddenly called out.

A large majority of the class responded positively in enthusiasm.

-

"Everyone's going…"The sub said to himself and smiled, then sat down and continued reading his manual on "Mousetraps and How to Set Them Up".

---

A/N: Man.. I feel like I'm dragging this chapter… I'm itching to start on the next chapter but I really gtg start on my holiday homework… {big sigh}

Ah, anyone at all know how to put the asterisks?? Anyone?

And don't forget to review.. not craving comments or trying to be a pain, but always good to know just how many people have come across ur fic..

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