The Ninja of the Night and the Village Hidden in the Lemon Peels

Book 4: Slash

A/N: For my own ego's sake, I'd like to let you all know that none of the original characters in this are based on me. I'd also like to warn you that the cliches are coming hard and fast from here on out.

The figure's hand, manicured to an eerie perfection, reached towards him. He struggled to get away, but he was frozen, unable to move. "I want your body," the demon whispered, its eyes glowing with evil intentions, "... Sasuke-kun!"

"NOOOOOOOO! Inooooooo!" Sasuke screamed, waking in a cold sweat. Just a dream... there weren't any crazy fangirls actually lurking in the woods around the camp... where there?

Naruto awoke to Sasuke doing what he referred to as "Hinata-finger no jutsu". "What do you want?"

"I... I had a nightmare," his friend whispered. "Could I sleep with you?"

Naruto laughed and tried to make room in his sleeping bag. "Of course."

"OW!" Haku gasped, pulling a needle out of his side. "Stupid fricking--," muttering a variety of un-Haku-like swearwords, he stood up to find the first aid kit, and tripped over the Naru-Sasu sleeping bag.

"AAAAAAH!"

Zabuza bolted awake. "FOOTBALL PRACTICE!"

"Zabuza-sama, make Sasuke put his shirt back on!"

Zabuza suddenly became aware that he couldn't see anything. Upon examination he realized this was because a pair of orange pants were covering his face. "First rule of survival in LemonLand, NEVER TAKE YOUR PANTS OFF."

"Yeah, I'll keep that in mind," Naruto muttered sarcastically as he and Sasuke huddled under the sleeping bag, trying to cover anything that may otherwise have been exposed, all the while searching for their missing clothing.

"I've said this before and been shot down," Haku started, "But I'm just going to throw it out there one last time. Do you want to skip sleeping tonight and just keep walking?"

Naruto and Sasuke glanced at each other sideways. "You know, you may be on to something there."

"I spy with my byakugan eye... a bright pink thong," Neji said. He and Hinata, not ones to be bogged down by the lemony chaos of their village, were sitting on the step of Iruka's house playing a game they had made up, and an amusing game it was, too.

Hinata giggled. "Miato Gai. Um... I spy with my byakugan eye... some shonen-ai... Whoa... that entire line rhymed."

On a small ridge, the bushes and tree parted, and, for the first time, Sasuke got proof that Naruto wasn't randomly inventing quests to nonexistent places. There, below them, were the walls of a city.

"Behold," Naruto announced dramatically, "Lemonpeelgakure; The Village Hidden in the Lemon Peels." (Folks, this is your captain speaking, we have a title!)

"If this turns out to be Konoha, and we've been wandering in circles, I'm gonna laugh so hard," Sasuke whispered to Zabuza as they followed Naruto over the hill.

A popping sound, like a balloon bursting, or air rushing into the vacuum created by the sudden disappearance of an object, echoed through the woods. Naruto, Sasuke, and Zabuza instinctively turned to the noise's source, behind them.

"What's going on?" Haku whimpered. "Why do I suddenly have peripheral vision?" His hand flew to his face, noting instantly that the mask that should have stopped him from doing this was no longer a part of his wardrobe. Panicking, he curled into a fetal position, his hands covering his face. "Don't look at me! Don't ever look at me!"

"Yeesh, it's not like you're deformed or something," Zabuza and Naruto muttered.

"I know! That's the point!" shrieked the Haku-ball.

"Oh, come on, the three of us have gone all this way without masks and we've done fine."

Sasuke, never much of a talker anyway, had wandered off into his own little world. "You know what would make a really cute fic? If I started wearing a mask all the time, and nobody could figure out why, but it turns out that something really weird happened, and I was deformed and afraid nobody would love me... but Naruto found out, and he was all like, "it's ok" and,"

Naruto stopped dead in his tracks, marched back up the hill, and grabbed Sasuke by the shoulders. "Are you out of your mind? Don't give Them ideas!"

Sasuke shrugged. "I just thought it'd be cute, that's all."

"Maybe there's something in that Sasuke's gay theory of yours, Naruto," Zabuza commented.

"Nah," Naruto grinned uncertainly. "That's crazy... he's being sarcastic. It's just good old sarcastic bastard Sasuke and his wacky sense of humor," the little blond stuttered, beginning to shake his teammate roughly. "Say it! You're joking, Sasuke, you have to be joking!"

"Stop shaking me, Naruto, I was only thinking out loud. It'd really work just as well with SasuSaku,"

"SasuSaku?" Haku asked, slowly uncurling. "What does that even mean?"

"Yeah," Sasuke continued, his eyes getting kind of glazed. "Actually, I can see the attraction of writing pairings... it's a challenge. Lee and Gaara for example..."

"Sasuke," Naruto started, unsure what to say.

"Think about the planning that would have to go into that to make it realistic... you'd have to have a plausible reason for them to be together, then you'd have to get them talking... unless you made it a rape fic..."

"He's become one of them!" gasped Zabuza. Naruto renewed his shaking efforts.

"Sasuke, snap out of it!"

"Now that I think about it, Gai always did strike me as the child-molester type," Sasuke continued to muse as Naruto held up three fingers. He lowered them slowly one by one,

Three...

Two...

One...

"AHGK!"

"Sorry, kid, it's for your own good," Zabuza explained to Sasuke as the remaining three dragged the bound hand-and-foot and gagged fanfiction fan along behind them.

"Murffle!" Sasuke responded.

"It's no good trying to talk through that gag," Zabuza continued.

"MURFFLE!" Sasuke repeated, trying desperately to nod his head towards the two kids who were walking in front.

Fortunately, Zabuza saw the captive's point. "HAKU! NARUTO! Get away from each other!"

"We're trying!" objected Naruto, all the while walking and hugging Haku. "As you get closer to the Village, the attackers stop worrying about plots and just make you attracted to whoever you can see! The four of us are like Yaoi magnets at this point."

"Murffle," Sasuke muttered.

Sakura woke up on the floor of a strange house, but was gratified to find her clothes on and herself alone. Yawning, she remembered the events of the night before, and went to check on Iruka and the Hyuuga cousins.

But the Hyuuga cousins weren't with Iruka. Kakashi was. In more than one sense of the word "with".

"AIEEEEEEE!" shrieked Sakura, slamming the door shut. "I saw nothing!" she assured the two teachers, deciding it was too early in the morning to deal with lemons, and going outside to the find out what Neji and Hinata were up to.

Concealed in a very handy ditch, Naruto, Zabuza, and Haku poked their heads over the bank to observe the imposing walls of LemonPeelgakure. The fortress's gate was heavily guarded by burly looking men in kinky leather outfits, and more of these guards were visible from atop the wall from time to time.

Faced by the daunting task of sneaking in, locating the Kage, destroying this no-doubt formidable opponent, and escaping without being caught, (Naruto considered this revenge enough: the loss of their leader would throw the Lemonpeelers into chaos, preventing counter-revenge attacks for some time), the company was struck speechless.

"So... how do we get in?" Sasuke asked, poking his head up next to them.

"Sasuke! How did you get untied?" Naruto asked, amazed.

"Any good ninja can free himself from a simple rope, dunce. Now, we've gotten out here, what's next? You're the leader, tell us, what shall our next move be?" he asked tauntingly, obviously challenging Naruto to come up with something.

"Leave it to me. I've got an attack no Writer could resist," Naruto grinned. "Just sneak in while they're busy with me. I'll meet you guys inside." And with that, he jumped up out of the ditch, running up to the gate.

"Yoo-hoo!" he shouted, grabbing the guards' attention as he preformed his best and favorite technique, his shadow clone jutsu. Within seconds, scores of Narutos littered the area.

"It's a cute trick and all," Zabuza muttered, "But we can't exactly sneak in on that alone."

"Isn't that just going to call more attention to the walls?" Haku asked uncertainly. "We'd've had a better chance waiting for nightfall..."

Sasuke shook his head. "The idiot. He's going to get us molested."

Naruto, however, wasn't done. Another hand motion, and the Narutos turned into a bevy of blond, pigtailed, bare naked ladies, who began making out... not with the guards, but with one another. It was like a clip from Sailor Moons Gone Wild.

"Wow..." breathed Haku, his eyes widening. "That's... that's..."

"The boy is a genius," Zabuza declared.

Sasuke ripped his eyes away from Naruto's Sexy no Jutsu, admitting to himself that it was a handy technique, after all. "Come on... we need to sneak in while they're distracted... I mean... his chakra can't last forever... well, maybe just a few more minutes..."

It took discipline, but the three did manage to leave the scene of Naruto's latest triumph and break into the Village, where they promptly became lost looking for the town hall, where the Kage most definitely was. However, they found their way there, because a troupe of guards walked past them, leading a prisoner. Naruto.

"So... you guys didn't like my Ninja Yuri attack, huh?" he asked nervously, only to have one of the guards hit him upside the head, making him stumble.

"Silence!"

Hidden behind a dumpster in an alleyway, Sasuke, Zabuza, and Haku started, as if to jump their friend's assailant, but all three checked themselves, deciding it would be more prudent to follow at a distance.

It was in this manner that they snuck into the prison, a row of cells that took up the basement of the Town hall. The guards, after giving Naruto a hearty amount of kicks and bruises, left him there to await the HentaiKage's judgement.

It was then that the three emerged from their hiding places, crowding around Naruto's cell, two of them concerned, one of them fed up.

"Are you all right?" the two concerned ones asked in so many words. Naruto, lying face down on the floor, didn't respond.

"I can't say it doesn't serve you right," Sasuke snorted. "This whole thing was your stupid idea."

"You're right, Sasuke," Naruto moaned from the floor.

"I mean–, wait, what?"

"I said you're right, Sasuke. This was stupid. I'm sorry I dragged you three out here... just leave me."

"Hey, come on, kid, don't talk like that," Zabuza said encouragingly.

"No. I've put you in enough danger. Get out of here."

Even Sasuke was a little concerned by this sudden change in his teammate. He knelt down next to the bars of the cell. "Naruto, I didn't mean—, I was just,"

Finally, weakly, Naruto raised his head to look at the three of them, and they could see he was crying. "I only wish Master Kakashi had been able to see that attack... he would have been so proud..."

In spite of himself, tears welled up in Sasuke's eyes, and he forced a smile at Naruto. "He would have loved it..."

"Do me a favor, Sasuke..." Naruto begged, stretching a hand out through the bars. "Tell him about it when you get home."

Sasuke took Naruto's hand. "No. It's these perverted bastards' fault that he was busy screwing Sakura rather than out here with us. We're going to pay them back. And then we're going to get you out of here, and you're going to tell him yourself. I promise."

"That doesn't sound like Sasuke talking," Haku whispered to Zabuza.

"You're right. It sounds like fanfiction Sasuke."

"Their own magic is working against them... on his own, Sasuke would have left Naruto here... but under the influence of a Lemon attack,"

Footsteps began to approach down the hall. Sasuke sprang up, followed by the two others. "Come on, we need to talk with the HentaiKage."

Emboldened by his mission, Sasuke lead the way, sneaking past the ranks of writers: little apprentice Flamers, still learning how to type; Preteen Fangirls (the equal to the rank of Genin), whose piercing squee struck fear in the heart of their opponents; Readers, Chunin-types with their faves list full to capacity and a review for every story, and the fearsome Hardcore Otakus, Jounin who carried printed sheets of facts and statistics, pictures of their favorite characters, and notebooks full of gorgeous fanart and complex, novel-like fics.

Two of these latter guarded the ornate doors that lead to the HentaiKage, and, not wanting to tangle with them, Sasuke and his group took shelter behind a nearby potted palm tree to think up a strategy.

They were still stumped when a dark haired man approached the two bodyguards. He couldn't have been more than eighteen, yet he must have been very important, because he was not dressed as a regular guard, but was instead wearing plaid boxer shorts, a Cowboy Bebop t-shirt, and a hat made from a used ramen cup. On the other hand, it could be that he had woken up late that morning and hadn't had time to dress. Either way, he was leading Naruto, who was unable to move because of the hot pink fuzzy hand cuffs on his wrists and ankles.

The two Jounin perked up when they saw him. "Yo," one greeted, flipping her long blond braid over her shoulder. Her counterpart was too busy sketching to brush her shoulder length orange-red hair out of her eyes, let alone look up. At first, Zabuza and Haku had suggested that she would be the weakest of the two links (especially as she was wearing costume fairy wings), but Sasuke, thinking of former battles with Kakashi, had vetoed this.

"Uh, I'm supposed to take this kid to see the Great Hentai," the be-boxered man explained, pointing at Naruto, who was determined to make as much noise as possible.

"I'm not just some kid!" he objected. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and someday I'm gonna be the Hokage of Konoha, and then I'm gonna take your wimpy little village down, so be ready!"

The drawing girl's head snapped up, her blue eyes widening to a golfball-size. "Naruto?" she squealed, going back to her days as a fangirl. "THE Naruto? Really?"

"Believe it!" Naruto confirmed.

"Oh my god, do you mind posing for me?" the bodyguard gasped. "I've been trying really really hard to draw you, and it hasn't been coming out right at all, and if you don't mind," she continued, leading Naruto over to a set of stairs a ways away and posing him.

"Uh, he's supposed to see the Hentai," Naruto's guard tried to remind them, following.

"Don't worry about it," shrugged the blond. "There's no hurry... and the Great Hentai is busy right now," she added, glancing briefly but significantly over at the potted plant our heros were hidden behind. The next instant, she had abandoned her post to watch the sketching.

"Did that seem a little ominous to anyone else?" Zabuza asked as they tiptoed up to the door, working together to pull the huge portal open.