If there are no further objections we shall continue. (Not that I would stop if there were, mind you.)
The Shinobi's Guide to Camping
By Kaori
"I spy with my eye something that is green!" said Lee.
"Gai-sensei's spandex suit." Sighed TenTen.
"Ooh! You are correct! How did you know?"
"Because every time we play this stupid game you always pick that. I spy with my eye something that is blue."
"The sky." Said Shikamaru.
They were on mile two of their ten-mile hike (five miles one way, five miles back to camp) and had been playing I Spy the whole time under the suggestion/demands/threat of temper tantrum by Maito Gai. Gai had been disgustingly exuberant the whole way and it was really getting on the nerves of those who had not accepted his weirdness or learned to ignore it entirely. Anyway, back to the game...
"I spy with my eye somebody that needs to die." Growled Sasuke who was quite fedup with the idiotic game, especially because whenever Sakura or Ino got one right they'd always pick him as the next thing (I spy with my eye someone really hawt).
"I hope he's not talking about me." Murmured Naruto.
"Ino-Pig!" Sakura blurted out.
"No way! Sasuke-kun was talking about you!" Ino growled.
"Why is it that when it comes to Sasuke all girls turn into idiots?" sighed Kiba. "Well…except for Hinata and TenTen anyway they're okay."
"You mean you really don't know?" blinked Shino.
"Know what?"
"I thought it was obvious that TenTen and Hinata like other people."
"Really? Who?"
"It is not my place to say."
"Oh some on, it's not like we have anything better to do!" whined Kiba. Shino glanced over at Hinata (who was turning a very interesting shade of purple) and then at TenTen (who was glaring at him and reaching for her shuriken pouch).
"I think if they wanted you to know, they would tell you."
"Nah, girls are weird like that. They never tell you anything up front and when you ask them what's wrong they say 'nothing' when they really mean 'there's something wrong but you have to guess what it is'."
"How do you know so much?"
"I have an older sister, remember."
"Ah."
"Neji? Neji, where are you!" cried TenTen. She had been so busy watching Kurenai try to kill Kakashi with his own book that she had completely forgotten about Neji.
"What? Neji is missing?" gasped Gai absolutely horrified. "Nooo! How could I let this happen?"
"Maybe he went back to camp." Suggested Naruto. "He's a such a sneaky bastard...Damn you Neji! Why didn't you take me with you!"
"He was probably abducted by enemy ninjas!" wailed TenTen.
"Don't be silly, if there were any other ninjas in the area we would have sensed them by now." Said Ino matter-of-factly. "And this is Hyuuga Neji we're talking about, nobody sneaks up on a Hyuuga."
"At the moment it doesn't matter how Neji went missing." said Kakashi.
"What do you mean it doesn't matter?" roared Gai. "My student could be in danger!"
"You didn't let me finish. I was going to say that the important thing is that we find him before it gets dark."
"Oh."
"Right then. Since this is, for all intents and purposes, a search and rescue mission each team will need one tracker. Since Gai's team's tracker is missing, they can borrow Hinata."
"If they get Hinata then I'm going to need to borrow Sakura from you." Kurenai said.
"Fair enough."
"Wait a minute my rival, doesn't that mean your team is short one member?" Gai pointed out.
"So true. Asuma, I'm borrowing Ino."
"Why Ino?" asked Asuma.
"Because Sasuke goes into must-find-and-kill-my-brother mode without the threat of fangirls looming over his head."
"Fine, but only if my team can go back to camp."
"Deal. So, Kurenai, Shino, Kiba, Akamaru and Sakura will search to the east; Gai, TenTen, Lee, and Hinata will go west; myself, Sasuke, Naruto, and Ino will run in between; and Asuma, Chouji, and Shikamaru will go back to camp and see if he's waiting there."
"What do we do if we find him?" asked Sakura.
"I'll leave that up to you, but at least give us a signal of some sort."
"Yosh! Let us begin Operation: Find Neji!" cheered Gai. "Mission, start!" And they all scattered.
Let's just leave them alone for a while and see what has become of our dear Hyuuga. Not by the river… not back at the camp…Hmmm, where could he…oh dear. Neji is being chased by what looks like an oversized boar. How the heck did this happen? Well, let's rewind a bit and see…
Neji, who had simply gone into the woods to…how to put this delicately…answer the call of Nature after neglecting to tell somebody because they'd most likely make fun of him. (Jokes about anal-retentive people anyone?) When he emerged from the foliage (feeling about ten pounds lighter) the others had left him behind. No problem, they were following a path so it would be easy to catch up, right? Wrong. A quarter of a mile up from where Neji had stopped, the path forked off into three directions and unfortunately, there weren't any tracks to follow (because a ninja leaving tracks, even while on vacation, is disgraceful).
No problem, he'd just sit there and wait until they came back, right? Wrong again for it was at that moment that a pack of wolves being chased by a rather enraged, giant wild boar came charging through. This boar could easily have been mistaken for a bear (if bears had tusks, hooves, and huge snouts). Preferring not to lower himself to fighting with animals (Naruto, Kiba and Akamaru are exceptions heheheh), he did what any overtly sensible person would do and climbed up a tree. Unfortunately this tree was already being occupied by a mountain lion that didn't want to share and he was knocked out of the branches by a powerful swipe of its paw.
Now he was in real trouble because the boar didn't care that he was not a wolf, only that he was currently stationary and coincidentally right in its path. The wolves promised to honour his sacrifice by howling at the moon over his remains tonight. And thus began the great Boar Chases the Caged Bird scene.
Now let us join one of the search parties. I think we'll start with Gai and company.
"Hinata do you see him?" asked Gai. Naturally, she was using the Byakugan to search for her wayward cousin. Granted she was hoping that they weren't the ones who found him because he probably wouldn't appreciate it.
"If we aren't the first ones to find Neji then I shall run through the forest three hundred times!" vowed Lee.
"And if Lee can't do that, then I shall do ten thousand push-ups with Kakashi on my back!"
"And if Gai-sensei can't finish the push-ups I shall kick the boulder outside our camp until tomorrow's sunset!"
"Yes and…"
TenTen twitched. Somebody had better find Neji soon because she wasn't sure how much more of this she could stand.
"Nejiiii! Where are youuuuu you broody bastaaaard!" yelled Naruto as his group rushed through their section.
"Neeeeejiiii!" Ino called out.
"Kakashi-sensei this is getting us nowhere." Sasuke complained. "Why don't you summon your ninken and let them find Neji?"
"Because we have Naruto and his kage bunshins and with all of them running around searching it seems a waste of chakra to summon the dogs." Kakashi said.
"Why do I even bother…" goaned Sasuke. "Damn you Hyuuga if you're not dead when I find you you'll wish you were."
"Akamaru and I aren't picking up his scent." Kiba announced.
"My bugs are telling me he hasn't been this way." Added Shino.
"Well then he probably didn't come this way." Said Sakura. "Maybe we should go back."
"We'll look around a bit more and then we'll go back." Kurenai said.
Neji was getting very tired of running. He was a ninja for Hokage's sake he shouldn't be running from a boar. Granted this wasn't a normal sized boar but still. Determined to put an end to this one way or another he turned around and readied himself. "You are within my field of hakke…"
BOOM! SQUEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLL! CRACK! BOOM! SQUEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL! WHACK, WHACK, WHACK! SQUEEAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL!
"What the hell is that awful noise?" Kiba demanded.
"Let's check it out." Kurenai nodded.
The other teams had the same idea following the sounds until they all ended up in a fairly large clearing where Neji was beating the tar out of a gigantic boar carcass.
"Neji! Enough already it's dead!" cried Kurenai.
"I don't think he heard you." Kakashi said, blandly. "Oh well, who wants boar tonight?"
There was a chorus of "Me's".
The meat should be nice and tender the way Neji was wailing away on it like that. What will tomorrow bring? We'll see next update, but for now talk amongst yourselves; the topic is Itachi: Natural Disaster or Terrorist Threat" Discuss.