A Kitsune Riding on my Shoulder

gives a wonderful speech about why there was such a long wait that actually sounds true and doesn't involve procrastination in any way shape and/or form and that's why it took so long…. I'm so sorry everybody!

Naruto slipped back into the apartment that he shared with his two guardian ANBUs and immediately hurried to the bathroom. Katsu looked up absently when he heard the door close and gave Naruto's shuffling jog a speculative look. The young boy was running sideways with one hand behind his back, his head turned so he was facing his right, and shuffling with one of his legs hidden behind the other. Needless to say, Katsu's curiosity was peaked.

"Oi Naruto-kun, where have you been?" he asked nonchalantly without looking up from the newspaper he was reading. Naruto's head jerked up at the sudden voice, before quickly twitching back into its original position, but not before Katsu saw what he was trying to hide.

"Oh, umm…. Kiba and Chouji wanted to hang out together today cause we don't really know each other cause we just met at the academy and so we decided to do some bonding with each other and you know, just hang out sometime when we weren't at the academy so that we could have fun and…… bond?" Naruto replied nervously, not realizing that he was rambling until Katsu looked up from his newspaper with a knowing look.

"Really?" Katsu asked, keeping up the nonchalant charade and enjoying the way the small boy squirmed under his scrutiny. "What kind of hanging out did you do in order to get that smudge of blue paint on your cheek?" He asked, fighting to keep from smirking at how utterly guilty the poor kid looked.

"Uhh…." Naruto froze for a couple seconds, his mind going into overdrive while he tried to think of a plausible excuse despite already being caught red-handed, so to say. "We were painting pretty pictures with Kiba's paint set?" He finished lamely, hoping that Katsu would fall for his pathetic excuse.

"Would you like to show me the picture you painted Naruto?" Katsu asked, finally allowing himself a small, confident smirk. Naruto looked down at the floor nervously and started playing with the hem of his shirt distractedly while his little mind worked furiously.

"Uh….. I left mine at Kiba's to dry!" He nodded his head furiously as if he could convince Katsu of the truth of his story by will alone. "I'm gonna go clean up now! Kay, bye!" And with that he ran into the bathroom, giving Katsu a clear view of what he had been trying to hide before. There was another streak of paint on the arm of his sleeve and his right foot was trailing paint as if he'd stepped in a puddle of it and not wiped his feet off.

Katsu just shook his head ruefully, grinning at the poor, innocent, little, naive, unfortunate, hapless, mischievous…. He shook his head, getting back on track. That poor kid, Ichiro was going to kill him when he got back.

(break)

The first thing Hinata realized when she woke up was that it was already dark outside. The second thing she realized was that she was in pain. Lots of pain. She felt as if someone had cheerfully carved tattoos and designs on every muscle in her body with a kunai. She, admittedly stupidly, tried to sit up and get her surroundings, when every inch of her body flared up with even more pain, making her collapse back onto the bed, gasping painfully.

"I see that you are awake, Hinata-sama" A cold voice commented from off to the side somewhere. Hinata slowly turned her head, ignoring the pain, toward the source of the voice, but was unable to locate exactly where he stood. She mentally cursed the darkness that was clouding her vision; she wanted to know if he was hurt dammit!

"Ne..." She broke off into hacking coughs and she reflexively covered her mouth with her hand and tried to stifle the painful coughs. When she pulled her hand away it was wet with what she realized must be blood. She wiped it off on her blanket it, trying not to think about what it meant and tried to finish what she was saying "nii-san…."

"Hiashi-sama is worried about his young heiress" Neji said in his monotonous voice, uncaring about how sick she truly was. "He sent me to watch over her until she woke up, at which point I am to tell her to get ready for her new lessons. Once she is ready for her new lessons I am to escort her to the dojo and instruct her in her first lesson" He spoke as if he was not referring to the girl in front of him, as if he was not even talking about a human, but rather, a pet that he was forced to watch over.

Halfway through Neji's little speech Hinata broke into another coughing fit that wracked through her entire body. Even after the coughing stopped her muscles continued twitching in remembered pain. She looked in Neji's direction unable to believe that he was planning on training her while she was in this state and also…….

"Demo, n-nii-san……. Do we really……" she looked away, feeling like she was being a whinny baby again, but could feel Neji's eyes on her and knew that know she had to finish her question, no matter if it sounded like she was complaining. "c-can't we….. wait till…. Morning?" she whispered hesitantly.

Neji didn't miss a beat at Hinata's strange question and merely grunted the affirmative. "Hinata-sama was out longer than anyone expected. We will have Hinata-sama's training session tomorrow morning" And then he was gone. Hinata let her head fall back on her bed, already exhausted and before she could wonder about her cousin's odd behavior she was back in the world of dreams.

(break)

Naruto exited the bathroom with one red cheek and one normal one. Likewise the left arm of his shirt looked normal, but the right sleeve had a blue stain and he had had only one shoe on, since he had left the other shoe in a sink full of water, hoping that the stain would go away if he left it there long enough. Ichiro had gotten back sometime while he was in the bathroom and looked ready to burst from excitement.

"Ohayo Ichiro!" Naruto called out, cheerfully bouncing into the kitchen where Ichiro was trying to cook lunch while Katsu got in the way and looted around in the fridge, merely to enjoy the knowledge that he was annoying the other. Ichiro spun around quickly when Naruto entered the room, and looked almost ready to start bouncing around the room himself.

"I've got a surprise for you Naruto-kun!" Ichiro squealed while waving his arms around in the air excitedly, earning him a worried look from Katsu and a worshipping look from the young bundle of energy in front of him.

"What'd you get Ichiro! Can I see it now? Pretty pretty please? I promise I'll be good with it!" The little boy got more worked up the longer he waited and started bouncing around in circle around the table before finally stopping in front of Ichiro and giving him a puppy dog look, still bouncing on the balls of his feet excitedly.

Ichiro laughed good-naturedly and ruffled Naruto's hair at his enthusiasm. "Of course you can have it Naruto-kun!" He reassured before practically running out of the room to fetch his surprise. When he came jogging back into the room he had both his hands behind his back and he grin had (if possible) grown even larger.

With a flourish, and a small, harmless, smoke bomb to make things look cooler, Ichiro pulled his surprise from behind his back and held it in front of him, proud of his great idea. Naruto bouncing stopped immediately when he saw what Ichiro held in his arms.

It was Neko-chan, but she was different. The blue bow that she had worn around her neck was gone and she had a huge pink bow on top of her head instead. The stain that she used to have on her right foot was gone, and the tear that had been leaking stuffing out Neko-chan's left cheek had been sewn up.

Naruto stared at the new and improved Neko-chan for a couple seconds, trying to wrap his mind around the huge pink bow. He hesitantly stepped forward and at Ichiro's anxious expression smiled and commented on how absolutely wonderful Neko-chan looked and wasn't Ichiro the most thoughtful person Naruto had ever met? He then proceeded to grab Neko-chan from Ichiro's hand and run back to his room to look at the damage.

"But Kagie!" Neko-chan slurred distractedly, causing Naruto to give her a worried look "I don't care….. pink frogs? Why can't we just…….ice cream and…… Why are the devil duckies always trying to steal my soul!" The last sentence was the only thing that Naruto could actually make sense from and it scared him how out of it his Neko-chan sounded. It couldn't be permanent…… could it?

(end)

Okay, I'm deciding to end the voting for pairing from hence forth and onward. Please, feel free to review telling me why you think Naruto should be with insert name here. I'm just not gonna tally them up anymore and let the story choose the pairings, but I am horribly easily influenced (hint: long reviews)

Uh, also, in case you didn't notice, this chapter has not been beta-ed and hopefully isn't too bad…. sweatdrop my beta's been really swamped lately and I don't really wanna bother him…. Anyone else wanna beta my story? attempts a puppy dog look and fails horribly