The Duet

Shivaroku calmly walked through the village towards Yamanaka Flowers, looking up at the clouds, not paying any attention to where he was going.

CRASH

"Owwww…that hurt," said Shivaroku.

He rubbed his head and looked forward to see what he crashed into. To his surprise it wasn't a what, but it was a whom! The first thing Shivaroku noticed was pink hair, and only one person in the village had pink hair.

"Sakura?" Shivaroku asked.

Sakura looked up and realized that she crashed into Shivaroku. "Oh it's you?" she said. They both immediately flashed back to the first time this happened. Shivaroku wasn't even a genin yet, and they didn't know each other's names. Nonetheless, the fact that it happened again in the exact same place was just embarrassing for them as they blushed and turned away from each other.

"Man, talk about déjà vu," said Sakura.

Shivaroku helped Sakura up. "We gotta stop meeting like this," he said with a wink, causing Sakura to blush and laugh awkwardly.

Ino walked out of the door of her shop only to see Shivaroku and Sakura holding hands and blushing. She thought to herself, "Seriously?! First Sasuke and now him. Why does she have to go after all the cute boyssss." Obviously not wanting to say it out loud, she changed her expression and said, "My-my, aren't you two getting close!"

Shivaroku and Sakura both looked confusedly at Ino. Ino was staring downwards, compelling Shivaroku and Sakura to look down at their hands. Almost immediately they pulled their hands away and held them behind their backs as they looked in opposite directions.

"I was just helping her up!" exclaimed Shivaroku

"Yeah exactly!" added Sakura.

"Uh-huh sure. Hey don't mind me, you guys can do whatever you want together," said Ino, who tortured herself for even suggesting such a thing.

"UGH! Why are you like this Ino-pig?! This is exactly why you can never get a boyfriend!" attacked Sakura.

A vein formed on Ino's forehead as she looked at Sakura. "You're one to talk! You never had a boyfriend either! Naruto chasing after you every day doesn't count!"

The two almost immediately began to bicker with one another. The bystanders were all aware of the two's shenanigans as they either facepalmed or laughed.

It was very close to becoming a physical match, so Shivaroku stepped in and pushed their faces apart. "I have never seen best friends fight this much."

"SHE STARTED IT!" said both girls at the same time, causing Shivaroku to sigh.

"Alright I feel like we wasted enough time. Ino, Lady Hokage has a duo mission for us," said Shivaroku as he turned towards Ino.

"What rank is it?"

"Only a C-rank by the looks of it. We gotta escort some traders around a mountain."

"Seems simple enough, lemme just pack up real quick and I'll meet you at the gate."

Shivaroku nodded as Ino walked back into her flower shop and to her room.

"A mission with Ino huh? A lot of guys would kill to be in your position right now," said Sakura.

"What?" asked Shivaroku confused.

"Do you not know about how popular Ino is?" asked Sakura.

"No not really."

"Ino is one of the most beautiful girls in the village. Boys love to be around her and girls wanna be like her, with the exception of me of course. People my age and older continuously put in requests to go on missions with her."

"Wow. I had no idea!"

"Yup! But I'll have you know, that she's denied those requests so many times that Lady Hokage has now started to auto-deny them for her. So as I said…you're pretty lucky."

"Guess I am, haha."

"So enjoy your mission with her. Just remember the rules about PDA," said Sakura with a devious grin.

Shivaroku blushed and yelled, "Hey! That stuff never even occurred to me!"

"What never occurred to you? And why are you still here Sakura?" asked Ino as she walked out of the shop with her packed bag.

Shivaroku spun around, "Oh uh Ino! Sorry, it's no-nothing!"

Ino looked at Shivaroku, then to Sakura, then back to Shivaroku again suspiciously. "You two really aren't doing a good job of hiding whatever's going on between you. No matter, let's go Shivaroku."

"Wait what? Damnit Ino NO. There's nothing between us!" yelled Sakura.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll see you when we get back, Sakura," said Ino.

Shivaroku and Ino started walking towards the gate.

"Hey you mind telling me more about this mission? I didn't want to ask because there were so many other people around," asked Ino.

"Oh yeah sure. So we have to escort a caravan of traders around Mount Nio."

"Why around? Isn't there a pass through the mountain?"

"That's what I thought, but apparently the traders saw a possibility of rockslides and stuff, making the pass pretty dangerous."

"That's weird. The pass never had issues like that before. What did Lady Hokage say?"

"She said that they were adamant about it. So it won't matter how much we try to convince them. We'll have to take them around the mountain. Besides they may be carrying some expensive stuff, and I can see why they don't want to lose anything if there was a rockslide."

"Well that's understandable, I guess…Hey WAIT. Mount Nio is like a 2-day trip away! I didn't pack nearly enough! Come to think of it, neither did you!"

"Oh that's why Lady Hokage asked me to go on this mission. I can get us there in half a day with Nimbus."

Ino suddenly remembered the golden cloud that Shivaroku used on his first mission. "Oh well that's convenient."

"Yup! Oh hey we're here, let's go sign out." Shivaroku and Ino notified the gate guards that they were going on a C-rank mission, which the guards confirmed, and they both chakra signed their names.

Shivaroku summoned Nimbus, concentrating on the fact that it had to be big enough for two people. The golden cloud popped out of the smoke and twirled around. Shivaroku hopped onto it and extended his hand towards Ino. Ino struggled to take Shivaroku's hand and shuddered.

"Hmm? What's wrong?" asked Shivaroku.

"Um. I uh never flew on anything before, so I'm a little scared," said Ino ashamed of herself.

Shivaroku laughed and said, "Don't worry. It's perfectly safe! Shikamaru can confirm."

"Shikamaru isn't afraid of anything! He literally has no emotions!"

"Harsh. Okay if it's really that important to you, I have a solution," responded Shivaroku as he hopped off the golden cloud.

"Go on."

"Why don't you sit in front of me? I'll hold on to you and make sure you don't fall off or anything."

"So you can fall of this thing!"

"Ugh Ino. Obviously you can fall off anything that flies if you don't secure yourself right. Comeon, just trust me."

"Okay fine." Ino hopped onto the front of Nimbus. Shivaroku was about to follow suit, when Nimbus cheekily sped forward a few feet, causing Shivaroku to fall flat on his face.

"Nimbus! What's the big idea?" The golden cloud jittered, making a sound that seemed like a giggle. "Okay did you get it out of your system? We have a mission to begin." Nimbus nodded.

"Wait you can communicate with this cloud?"

"Yeah. Nimbus is a sentient golden cloud. The person who bestowed it on me channeled his chakra and spirit energy through it, which basically made it alive."

"Huh…neat," said Ino as she thought to herself, "There are so many things I still don't know about this guy. It's almost like everything he does is something extraordinary!"

Shivaroku hopped onto the back of Nimbus, crossed his legs, and put his hands on Ino's waist, causing Ino to blush slightly.

"Hey don't get any weird ideAAAAAAAHHH," nimbus immediately boosted towards the North.