Haha, I started typing this just after I posted the previous chapter. I'm bored to death and home alone, so what am I supposed to do instead of typing more chapters! Hahaha. I probably won't have (m)any reviews before I finish typing this, so... Yeah.

Shang - Haha, good idea... Or there's an awesome trick I heard from my friend where you duct tape a person to their bed and put whipped cream on their hand and then tickle their nose and they'll put their hand on their face and not be able to get up to clean it off...

#1: Yeah, but you know how Sakura is... She's just the sort of person/mother who'd find out something only to tell it to her kids. At least in my opinion, my Mom's like that and she just seems like Sakura, which is a REALLY strange thought now that I think of it.

#2: It's because he TAUGHT them that... So... Yeah. Basically they all know that now and Ino is nice (contrary to popular belief) so she decided to let them pass.

And onto the Ino-being-higher-ranked-than-Shikamaru thing, you'll see Ino have a flashback sometime during the Chuunin Exam that'll show them in theJouninExam and will show how Shikamaru is still a Chuunin and what-not.

Just as a warning, I'm listening to 'Hollaback Girl' by Gwen Stefani over and over and over again since I'm extremely bored so this chapter may seem a bit different... But, I'm also listening to 'Way Away' by Yellow Card (an awesome song).

Began: 7:00PM 11/04/05

Finished: 6:10PM 11/09/05

Chapter 3: What? These Are Missions?

It was just ten minutes before seven and all three of the Genin were arriving, each of them appearing in a different mood. Seishou still looked half asleep and could barely walk straight, Lian looked like she was in an extremely bad mood, and Torai looked indifferent.

"Y-y-you're s-seriously g-g-going to d-do m-mi-missions l-looking like t-th-tha-that?" Seishou said, stumbling as she met with the other two in the middle of the training area while pointing at Lian.

It was a legible statement, since Lian looked like she'd just been dragged through the whole city backwards. Her buns were coming undone and she just looked plain bedraggled. "Shut up, Miss. mismatching socks."

Seishou looked down and saw that she was wearing one neon pink sock and one neon green one. Why she had socks of those colors? Nobody knows.

"Can't you two stop bickering just for today?" Ino said, walking up to them with her hands on her hips. "Once we start going on bigger missions you'll have to work together a lot, and especially for the Chuunin Exam. If you two don't work together for that you guys will never become Chuunin." She received one glare, one blank look, and one scowl. "Okay, your first mission is going to be searching for the client's puppy in the local woods."

"Searching for a puppy?" Seishou said, the statement had apparently woken her up. "Why the heck do we have to look for a damn puppy for a mission?"

"Just because." Torai said, chancing a glance at her. How the heck did she become a Genin if she didn't even know we'd have to start with easy missions like this?

"You three will be handling the mission on your own, I'll be stationed just outside of the woods with my headset, contact me and your teammates if you spot the target or any clues to where he might be." Ino said, handing each of them a headset then putting on her own and turning it on. "Okay everybody, go!"

The three kids ran off in front of her while she tailed right behind, they reached the woods in no time, and Ino found a place to stand in one of the trees closer to the outside. In less than five minutes she got the first report.

« Paw prints spotted heading West South West approximately one hundred meters and thirty degrees North from starting position. » Torai reported.

Hm, that kid already knows the correct format for reporting location. I thought they didn't go over that in the academy unless it was specifically requested. Whatever, nothing less is expected from Sakura and Sasuke's kid. Ino thought, before replying. « Okay. Lian, Seishou, did you get that? »

« Hai. » Both of the girls replied at the same time and you could almost hear them scowling.

There were about fifteen minutes before another message. « Target spotted! He's about two hundred fifty meters and five degrees South from the starting position! » Seishou's voice practically bursted all of their eardrums.

« Torai, Lian, both of you go to the position she stated, Seishou, make sure that the target doesn't get out of the area. »

« Hai. » All of them replied, and through her earphones Ino heard some barking so she knew that Seishou wasn't just trying to get recognition or anything like that.

It was just thirty seconds before the next message came. « I've met up with Seishou. » Torai, of course.

« I've also met up with the bakamono. » Ino had a clearly visible anime-style sweat drop on the back of her head. Those two are never going to get along are they?

Though it wasn't intentionally meant to be heard over their headsets Ino heard Torai say, « Both of you just shut the hell up, we're going to scare that dog away and we'd have to start all over again. »

The dog was currently stuck between all of them, and the three Genin were in a triangle-like formation around it. Both Lian and Seishou spoke at the same time. "I've got it!" Each of them jumped at the dog and crashed into each other. The only good thing about that? They landed on top of the dog, who was now trapped.

Torai sighed and said over his headset, "Target captured, Ino-sensei. Um... Lian and Seishou are unconscious also." He heard Ino sigh at the other end of the connection.

"I'll be right there so we can take out of the forest and wait until they wake up." It was just a second before she poof-ed into the area. "Okay, you get the dog and I'll get Lian and Seishou." Torai picked up the puppy and unconsciously started petting it and scratching it behind the ears while Ino lifted both of the girls up and put them each over a different shoulder.

They were about half way back when each of them started partially coming to their senses. "This was your fault, bakamono."

"No, it was yours akachan."

"Baka."

"Akachan."

"Can both of you just shut up for one hour?" Torai said, glaring at both of them.

"Oh, yeah. I'm scared of a boy petting a puppy." Lian said, rolling her eyes.

"Don't talk to Torai-kun that way!" Seishou yelled, reaching over and hitting Lian over the head. She would've hit Seishou back if she hadn't leaned just out of her reach.

"Hn, boy crazy bakamono." Lian faced away from Seishou, secretly glaring at her through the back of her head with her Byakugan.

"Both of you be quiet or I won't even try entering you in the Chuunin Exam coming soon." Ino said, that shut each of them up since each of them knew they just had to be in the Chuunin Exam, and Torai was glaring at them in a 'If-either-of-you-say-one-more-word-you're-dead' way.

"Now we're going to go get your second mission, if you didn't already know you have to have eight missions of any level finished before you can be entered into the exam. If you two don't get along we'll never finish the eight missions since I plan for the last one to be a C-rank mission." Ino put the two girls down since they'd reached the outside of the forest. "We're not far from the building where we get the missions, so try not to make a commotion on the way there."

They arrived at the building without any troubles, except for Seishou and Lian constantly glaring at each other. They walked into the room where they received missions. "Ohayo, Hokage-sama." Ino said, smiling.

"You don't need to be so formal, Ino, I've known you since we were in the academy. So do they need a new mission?" Naruto said, smiling.

"Yeah, Torai has the puppy from the last mission." Torai put the puppy down and it ran to who they guessed his owner was.

"Okay, and so you don't have to bother coming back here after every mission I'll give you the next three that are open. You'll be babysitting for Tarahashi-san first, that'll take about two hours, afterwards you'll be gardening for Soraki-san, and then more gardening for Kinaita-san." He handed Ino a sheet of paper with the addresses.

"These are missions?" Seishou said, looking surprised. "I could've done these in my first year at the academy! You have to be joking, tou-san!"

"No, I'm not. You start with D-rank missions, and as you move up the ranks you go higher. Don't complain about it or I'll give you the easiest missions." Naruto said, Seishou was now caught between a two way glare (Torai on one side, Lian on the other.).

So, that's how they ended up getting peed on, getting poison ivy, and getting really muddy. Each of them reached their homes that night only to be annoyed, ticked off, ext.

"Lian, how in the world did you get so messy, and stop scratching the poison ivy, you'll make it worse." Tenten said, her motherly instincts taking over and causing her to worry about her daughter's well-being.

"I don't care if it'll make it worse, it itches like hell!" Lian said, already having been sat down in one of the kitchen chairs. She took her left hand away from her mother (who was holding it by the wrist) and started scratching her right arm.

"Lian, you shouldn't talk like that, you're still ten." She was scolded, and then her hand was grabbed again. "If you keep scratching I'll have to put oven mits on your hands so you won't even be able to itch."

Never had it been so hard to resist glaring, and it just had to be right then that Tadatori returned from training with their father. "Woah, what happened to you?"

"Shut up."

"You look like you've been dragged through the Inuzuka's back yard backwards."

"I said shut up."

"Whatever."

Her mother had briefly refocused her attention on making sure they didn't start fighting, so Lian started scratching again. "That's it, I'm going to have to use my oven mitts, but take a bath first."

That time she did glare, but it wasn't caught, as she walked to the bathroom to take a bubble bath. (Yes, a bubble bath. She is still ten.)

"I hate this..." Seishou already had oven mitts on her hands and was cleaned up pretty well, though her hair was still a mess and was being brushed by her mother.

"Don't complain, it could've been worse, you know." Naruto said, he'd just arrived home and was eating some chicken-flavored ramen.

"How could it – Ouch! – be worse?" Seishou jumped when Hinata yanked at a particularly big knot in her hair.

"You could've had to take dogs for a walk and be led into a trap-filled area..." Naruto had a flashback to when he'd just become a Genin and visibly shivered.

"I'd have rather been in that situation than with – Ouch! Don't pull so hard! – oven mitts on my hands and kaa-san practically tearing my hair out."

Torai had just arrived home and was being stared at by all of the other kids who lived there. He just stared back, but they still kept staring. Eventually he squeezed his way through the miniature crowd and got to the bathroom to start cleaning himself off.

Hahaha, poor Seishou. My mom tries to do that to me all the time, which is why I leave for school about an hour early so she won't come home from work and decided that I look completely crappy and need to redo everything... Gah. At least I get some time to listen to music in my school's multi-purpose room where we're stored until 7:40 and let to go to our lockers.

Poor Torai, also, he was stared at, which is pretty much the Uchiha's way of ridicule.

Well, that's it for this chapter, make sure to watch for the next one!

Sayonara!