Disclaimer: Naruto's not mine…but if you wanna see something funny go to google and type "real ninjas"…click on the youTube link and prepare to laugh your ass off. Ah…wipes eyes good times.

Chapter 15: Festival's End

Iruka sat at Ichiraku and smiled at Ayame-chan. Even though he had been Shizune's escort the night of the Welcome dinner, the kind-hearted teacher knew that it had been nothing more than a "pity" date—on both sides. It was the last day of Konoha's week long Summer Festival and he was determined to enjoy it.

After all, school started again next week.

The chuunin shuddered at the realization and turned his head when he felt the familiar presence of his friend appear at his side.

"Kotetsu," he murmured. "Tsunade-sama let you out of your cage?"

The wild haired man laughed sarcastically and gently punched Iruka on the shoulder. "Very funny."

Iruka looked around and then at Kotetsu. "Where's your shadow?" he asked.

"Trailing someone else for a change," Kotetsu sat down next to the teacher and swiped a fish cake from the other man's ramen bowl.

"Really?" he asked as he pushed his almost empty bowl to his friend. "Who?"

"I'll give you two guesses," he said, adjusting the bandage across his nose and stuffing his mouth with the remaining noodles. "She's short, she has a strange affection for her hand fans, and she loves pandas."

Iruka smiled. "You could have stopped with the hand fans," he said.

Kotetsu smiled back. "But I love the pandas part!"

"Why is Itsumo with Kinabuhi-sama?" Iruka asked. "Isn't the Kazekage with her?"

"For once he isn't," the other replied. "Godaime-sama needed to speak to him alone so she ordered Itsumo and me to watch her."

"Then why are you here?"

"Itsumo drew the short straw."

"…"

Kotetsu drained the bowl of soup and immediately, another bowl of ramen appeared before him. "We bumped into Naruto, Temeki-san, Hinata, and Sakura on the Festival grounds. Kinabuhi-sama said that with Naruto and the others there she didn't need us."

"But you're under Godaime-sama's orders," Iruka pointed out, looking at something in the distance.

"Exactly!" the ramen consuming man muttered.

"But you went anyway…"

"I might have mentioned something about not eating breakfast yet," Kotetsu admitted. "Kinabuhi-sama sure has a soft heart for people who haven't eaten yet…did you notice?" (1)

"She offered to share her bento with me when she stopped by the Academy to talk about teaching methods while I wrote up the schedules for next semester," Iruka mentioned.

"Teaching methods?" the other man asked, forgetting his own story for the moment.

"Hai, she's the head of the Taijutsu Department for Suna's Ninja Academy," Iruka informed. The something that the teacher had been staring at before came closer and he brought his friend back to the previous topic.

"So you just left her?"

Kotetsu looked up at his friend, insulted. "I did not just leave her!" he said loudly, attracting attention to the duo. "She told me that she didn't need me anymore and to go eat something because she wasn't hungry yet, and couldn't stand the thought of someone not eating when they were hungry just because they were too busy guarding her!"

"So she ordered you to leave?"

"Yeah, in a manner of speaking."

"Even though you were under the orders of Godaime-sama and probably the Kazekage as well?"

"Yeah…" Kotetsu repeated slowly. "Iruka, why are you making me repeat all of this?"

"Because…" the teacher said, pointing over his friend's shoulder. "Kazekage-sama and Godaime-sama are standing right behind you."

"Sabaku Kyuu!"

Kotetsu whimpered as sand covered his entire body except for his head, effectively trapping his arms and legs. The sand coffin slowly turned and he looked into the angry faces of Tsunade and Gaara.

"Where is Kinabuhi-sama?" Tsunade asked, a vein pulsing in her temple.

"On the Festival grounds…probably…" the frightened man whispered.

"You left her alone?" Gaara asked calmly.

"N-no! Itsumo and Naruto are with her! Along with Temeki-san, Hinata, and Sakura!"

Tsunade gave her subordinate a hard glare and turned to the Kazekage. "Please, don't kill him," she asked. "I just finished breaking him in as an assistant. Don't make me go through that again."

Gaara nodded and replied, "Since I know how difficult it is finding competent help, I'll honor your request. But you might want to re-teach this one the value of completing an assignment."

She nodded and smiled at Iruka. "Enjoy the last day of the Festival, Iruka-san," she said. She looked at Gaara and they started walking to the Festival grounds, Kotetsu floating behind them in the sand coffin.

"And they say that marriage mellows a man," a voice murmured behind Iruka. "He's even scarier when you know that he won't kill you right away."

"It gives you time to wonder what he's got planned," Iruka agreed. He turned around and smiled. "Kakashi! When did you get here?"

"Around the same time as the Kages," he answered. The silver haired jounin stared at the menu for a while before talking again. "You can be a real ass when you want to be, y'know that?"

"I know," Iruka answered, eating Kotetsu's forgotten ramen.

"So, are you planning on entering the water dunking contest?" Kakashi asked.

"Maybe. Who're the poor souls assigned to the chairs this year?"

"Gai, Anko, and Ibiki."

"I'm in."

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"Is that the Kazekage's woman?" a soft voice asked, watching the animated, purple eyed girl laughing and talking with a blue-eyed girl. The early morning sun shone on the identically dark heads of hair. At this distance, the girls looked more like sisters than mistress and handmaiden.

The man leaned against the shadowed wall of the alley and smiled. "Yes."

"She's surrounded by people."

"We'll get her alone somehow."

Cold black eyes met dark green ones.

"How?"

The man shrugged his shoulders and watched the group go from one Festival booth to the other.

"Something will turn up," he laughed. "I've always been lucky that way."

"If we catch her and she manages to escape, that monster will have our heads."

"Don't worry, my friend. She's merely the bait. The real prize will come soon enough."

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"What's that?" Kina pointed at a large tank of water that took up the entire back quarter of the Festival grounds. A wooden wall at least 15 feet high stood against the back of the tank. She noticed that there were three ledges set into the wall and that they were positioned in a way that no ledge was directly above or below another. "That wasn't there yesterday."

Naruto looked over at the tank and laughed. "That's for the water dunking contest, Kina-chan," he said.

"Water dunking?" Kina asked.

Sakura smiled and began to explain the game to Kina and Temeki.

"Naruto's talking about the old carnival game. You know, where you throw a bean bag at a target and dunk a person into a tank of water? A few years ago, Konoha modified the idea to better fit the abilities of ninjas. Instead of one target, there are three. Each one is smaller than the last and further away from the Start line as well."

"The contestants are given three kunai," Hinata continued. "You're supposed to throw them all at once. Three jounin are picked each year to sit on the ledges. If you hit the big target, the lowest ledge drops. If you hit the medium one, the second. And if you hit the smallest one, the highest ledge drops."

"And the jounin assigned to the ledges can't use jutsus to keep them from falling," Naruto finished. "It's a blast to watch!"

"Points are based on which targets you hit," Sakura added.

"Has anyone managed to hit all three?" Temeki asked, intrigued.

"No," Sakura answered. "But I'm sure that Sasuke could have done it."

"If he could bring himself to come off of his high horse and join us peasants, you mean," Naruto muttered.

"Naruto!"

"Y'know it's true, Sakura-chan!" Naruto yelled back. He couldn't take it. After a week of playing bodyguard and thinking about things, he couldn't keep his anger and frustration quiet anymore. Not with Sasuke so achingly close by to shout at.

"The high and mighty Uchiha would only show his face at the Welcome dinner and then would go into hiding for the rest of the Festival!"

"Naruto…" Sakura said calmly.

"They need to know! I need to explain this…anger," Naruto shot back. "The Gods know, we've mentioned the teme enough this week!"

Hinata nodded and put her hand on Sakura's shoulder. "He's right," she whispered, her pearly eyed gaze as hard as diamonds. "They need to hear this. Especially Temeki-san."

He turned to Kina and Temeki, but glared directly at the blue-eyed girl. "Sasuke was a friend of ours who thought he was better than us simply because of his family name and his circumstance," he began, bitterly.

"Well, Sakura's name is just as noble as his! His circumstances weren't any worse than mine! In fact, they were better! No one sold him rotten food and made sure that the only edible thing he could buy was crushed instant ramen. No one called him names and spat at his feet! So what made him so much better, so superior? What gave him the right to look down on us and Konoha?" the blonde snarled, fiercely.

"What gave him the right to slap our hands away and give us to ninja who were all too happy to slaughter us when all we wanted to to do was to call him our friend?"

"I've bled for him," Naruto said. "Over and over again, I've bled for the bastard!"

He gestured to Hinata and Sakura. "Hinata and Sakura have bled for him. Neji and Chouji almost died for him. Every one of us has sacrificed and fought for him to come back, to come home. We've done everything we could think of to show him that Konoha loves him and wants him back. And you know what? He doesn't even care."

Temeki was surprised by the anger and hatred in the other boy's voice. She looked over at Sakura and saw that the girl was nodding and agreeing to everything the dobe said. Temeki watched as tears slid down Sakura's face as the pink haired girl turned and slowly walked away.

She knew that when she was a boy—when she was Sasuke—she had hurt them, but she didn't know that they hated him.

She felt the unexpected and unfamiliar feel of tears fill her eyes. She couldn't stand the look Naruto was giving her anymore, so she did the only thing she could do.

She turned and ran.

"Temeki!" Kina yelled out, following her.

"Naruto, go after them," Hinata said.

He blinked as he surfaced from his rage and turned to look at the girl.

"Naruto," she said, steel coating her voice. "Go after Kinabuhi and Sasuke."

"You know?"

"I've always known."

Shock showed in Naruto's eyes and slowed his reflexes. He couldn't dodge the fist that Hinata aimed for his shoulder.

"Snap out of it, dammit," she yelled. "And go after them, Naruto!"

Holding his shoulder, Naruto started running after the two girls. If Hinata knows, he worried as he slid around the corner, who else does?

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Gaara, Tsunade, and Kotetsu found Itsumo leaning against the wall next to the restrooms.

The vein in Tsunade's head pulsed harder as she asked, "Where is Kinabuhi-sama?"

Itsumo stood at attention at the Hokage's voice and answered without noticing the large sand coffin behind her. "Thank god you're here, Godaime-sama! They've been in there for almost fifteen minutes! Can you go in and see what's wrong?" he asked.

Tsunade shook her head and Gaara's frown intensified. They already had a good idea what was 'wrong,' but Tsunade went into the women's restroom just to make sure.

She came back out a few seconds later and slapped her clueless assistant upside the head. With her strength, the man flew three feet before he met the hard surface of Gaara's sand wall.

"You dumbass!" she yelled. "They snuck out the back! What kind of ninja are you that four girls and Naruto managed to fool you like that!"

Gaara was about to trap the other idiot in a sand coffin next to his friend when a bloody Hinata ran up to them.

"Gaara-san, Tsunade-san!" she gasped as she held her hand to the wound in her side. "Someone's taken them!"

"Taken who?" Tsunade asked.

Gaara released the two hapless leaf nin from his sand. He was afraid he knew what was coming and didn't want his sand to react and accidentally kill one of the morons.

"Someone's taken Temeki, Naruto, and Kina-san!"

A/N:

Dun, dun, DUN!

Ok…time for some action! Unfortunately...I'm gonna be out of town for the weekend (Vegas, baby!) and unable to update until Monday. Sorry about that. But the wait will make everything better.

Oh, and about Naruto's rant...he had to take care of Temeki for an entire week...and Sasuke ssssooooo needs to be yelled at! At least, that's how I feel.

(1) My friends always say the one trait of my mother's that they notice the most is the fact that she thinks everyone is hungry all the time. In high school, it was always: "Here, have some snacks." Now almost four years later, it's still the same.