Hey guys so I know that I haven't posted…anything in a while and for that I am sorry. For while I finished school a bit ago I had to start studying for my test that was a month afterward for my actual license. Due to this all of my time went towards that super important test. In fact I easily did 300+ hours of studying for that test and still didn't feel prepared. Still I passed it and got the right to be called an LVT. Though after that I had to get use to a job which took me a while…and I am not even going to be working full time yet there. Anyways I regret to say that my main computer is yet again going to need to be fixed so that might cause me some trouble soon as well. After that I should be good for a while and try to update back on my regular schedule (at least 1 chapter ever 2 weeks) even if I lost most of my readers due to being basically a "dead" writer for a year+. Anyways enough of me talking I hope those of ya who stuck around to read this after all this time enjoy

P.S. I don't own Naruto

Chapter 25

The next morning Naruto woke up to hearing a knock on his apartment's door. So, he tried to rub the tiredness out of his eyes and get up but was stopped from moving when he noticed that there was a now familiar weight on his side. For looking down he saw a now waking up Haku right next to him in her normal sleep wear. Course he could only mumble out a quick good morning before wiggling out of her hold to see who woke him up earlier than he wanted to.

"Hello" Naruto mumbled out while opening the door only to see an ANBU standing there and quickly got more focused.

"Hokage-sama requires your presence in her office immediately." The man told Naruto before quickly disappearing from the area.

"Well I guess I have to go see what baa-chan wants." Naruto told himself before walking back into the apartment to get ready. Then after that small amount of time he began his trip towards the hokage tower; though not before giving Haku a quick hug.

~Hokage Tower~

"Hey Baa-chan what's up?" Naruto happily asks as he runs into the room without even bothering to knock. Course after he made it in, he saw Tsunade sitting at her desk with Shikamaru standing in front of her. Though the thing that drew his attention the most was two chunnin jackets laying on the table.

"Damn gaki about time you got here, and stop calling me that" Tsunade growled out at the blond before letting it go and simply getting Naruto to stand next to Shikamaru.

"Anyways after reviewing both of your exams the council and I have agreed that both you Shikamaru Nara and Naruto Uzumaki-Namikaze should be promoted to the rank chunnin. May you continue to serve this village and keep the will of fire burning." Tsunade told them clearly giving a basic speech made for this ceremony especially since she then went into a long explanation of their new rules and expectations.

"Troublesome" was all that came out of the Nara boy's mouth as he put on his new jacket though you could see that he was proud of himself just by the look in his eyes. Meanwhile Naruto had a large smile on his face as he took the jacket but didn't put it on seeing as he already was wearing a chunnin uniform. Course after they received their new rank Tsunade dismissed both of them and they happily walked out of her office.

"So, Shikamaru how does it feel to know that we are the first of the group to get a higher rank?" Naruto asked the lazy boy happily.

"It will be troublesome to have new responsibilities but at least it will keep my mother off my back for a while." Shikamaru mumbled out with a short yawn at the end. "Though how are you so happy even though that mission went so bad?" Shikamaru asked the blond remembering why he was so stressed that he couldn't get nearly as much sleep as he wanted. "How are you so happy? After all it was your teammate that left and all of us got pretty badly hurt on MY watch. Not to mention that you were the worse of us all with even poison blocking your healing factor." Shiamaru though as he watched the blond lose his smile and get serious.

"Shikamaru what happened in that mission happened; we can't do anything to fix it. So, what if the bastard left with our resident bastard. We tried our best to stop him and didn't manage to due to being overpowered. It is best just to look past failures and work harder to not have another. Though at least we all came back from this failure." Naruto told his friend who looked surprised.

"How can you be this calm when not only did we fail but everyone got hurt…but me. I mean you all were stuck in the hospital for days in critical condition. And you were the worst off."

"Yes, but we all made it through." Naruto told him with a shrug shocking the genius even more.

"But you all nearly died. Under my command!... I basically sent you to your deaths." Shikamaru told him ashamed of how badly he performed during the mission but stopped his depressing thoughts out of surprise when he felt Naruto grab his shoulder.

"Listen Shikamaru you did the best you could, and probably better than any of us could. You just didn't know what we were gonna face…and had no way to know that either. Plus, we are ninja we know that we may die at any time and are at peace with it. So, don't beat yourself up over one tough mission. We need that brain of yours to stay sharp and lead us next time." Naruto told him then gave him a pat on the back. "Now let's go celebrate with the gang with a few bowls of ramen." Naruto told Shikamaru who was still standing in the same place before shaking his head and slowly following his fast pace back out into the village.

"Naruto I never will understand how you are able to make people feel better after a few simple words…people may think you are stupid but you do have some skills that it seems people just aren't aware of." He thought as he followed the blond at a slower pace.

~Few hours later, Akimichi grill and bar~

(Not sure what the actual place is but picture the restaurant you see Shikamaru and the rest of his team eating at; not sure if it was ever named but it suits a restaurant to be with their family)

After a bit of effort Naruto managed to get most of the other teams to come and have a celebration with him for lunch. In fact, the only people that couldn't make it was Neji due to his duty to his clan and the traitor; Sasuke. Though instead Naruto managed to talk Jiraiya, Tsunade, Anko, Iruka, Ayame, Haku, Konohamaru and his friends to come with them.

"Thanks everyone for coming to eat with us as me and Shikamaru celebrate our rank up!" Naruto called out happily to their large group before sitting down between Hinata and Ayame. This also ended up being the seats right across from Haku and Ino who currently looked slightly annoyed with their two harem sisters.

"Che, next time I will win the good seats." Ino thought slightly glaring at Ayame who took advantage of sitting close to Naruto to draw him in for a hug and a kiss on the check for a 'congratulations gift.'

"Why did my luck have to be so terrible that I couldn't even sit next to my master in case he wanted me to help him." Haku thought slightly depressed even as she blushed at the thought of happily feeding Naruto as he smiled at her. Course both of them only got were disappointed seeing as their small group had drawn straws to see who would sit with Naruto; Which ended up leaving Ayame and Hinata as the winners. Still this didn't keep them down for too long seeing as the party soon started up with everyone talking and enjoying themselves as food was passed around. So, all in all everyone was having a good time with their friends.

"Wow Akamaru who would have thought that Naruto of all people would have ever gotten ahead of us in rank." Kiba told his dog then laughed at the glare Naruto was giving him.

"Shut up kibble breath you are just jealous." Naruto growled at the brown-haired boy.

"Che, as if anyone could be jealous of someone who was the class's idiot." Kiba muttered causing Naruto to glare at him.

"Boys stop it now!" Hinata ordered both of them in a tone that both of them were didn't even think she could possess. In fact, she even was slightly glaring at them to show how serious she was.

This stopped their argument fast seeing as they were too shocked to hear Hinata not only being louder than normal but also gave an order.

"Wow Hinata I didn't think you had it in ya." Kiba told the girl with a smirk then looked to Naruto. "Looks like you managed to find the perfect person to keep your stupidity in check." Kiba told the blond with a chuckle.

"Shut up." Was all Naruto told his friend and old rival before putting a hand over Hinata's shoulder and drawing her in for a one armed hug. "Though it is good to hear you coming out of your shell a bit more hime-chan." He then told her smiling at the shy girl. Course at this point all the attention she was getting was making the poor girl blush in embarrassment which only got darker when Naruto hugged her close.

"Ok boss enough flirting the food is done so let's eat." Konohamaru called out before grabbing some of the food that was on the grill; an action that the rest of his 'team' soon copied.

"Damn brat" Naruto mumbled lightly blushing due to being embarrassed for calling his actions flirting but soon let it go and grabbed some food himself; and with that everyone began to eat and continue having a good time. Throughout the party the group all enjoyed themselves and had plenty of their own fun both talking and messing around with their normal groups.

"Hey Asuma-sensei this is your chance. She is right next to you, make a move." Ino whispered to her teacher who quickly gained a blush and glanced at the beauty next to him.

"Why did I have to slip up and make the only girl on my team interested in my love life? Now she will take any chance she gets to try and make her 'show' more interesting." Asuma mentally complained to himself but still talked with the woman beside him just to keep Ino from pestering him as much during the meal.

"Heh, so Ino is trying to be a match maker huh?" Anko thought with a smile after overhearing her whisper due to sitting close enough to her. "Though Kurenai has always had a small crush on the smoker anyways so might as well let her have some fun trying to get the idiot to make a move faster…though he is lucky she hasn't tried getting Naruto to help her then he would be in trouble of much sneakier methods." Anko thought mentally laughing at the man's predicament before leaning on Iruka's shoulder a bit and remembered what her blond friend did for them.

The party lasted for quite a while but eventually it had to come to an end with everyone going their separate ways to try and make the most of the rest of the day. Though for Naruto this was one of the more embarrassing parts seeing as before Jiraiya left with Tsunade to talk about something he handed Naruto a scroll with a large smile on his face.

"Congrats brat. Now as a reward for showing just how good of a trainer I am have something that I am sure you will need later on with the training you are going to want to do with your lovely ladies." The perverted man told Naruto while handing it to him with a large grin on his face. Course the thought of new training exited the blond so he quickly opened the scroll to find several storage seals printed on its paper.

So, he quickly pumps some chakra into the first one curious as to what it was only to see a familiar orange book. This of course confused him until he realized what his sensei was hinting at and had a deep red blush quickly cover his face. Sadly for him this made the girls that were with him curious about the gift so they tried seeing what it was by trying to glance over his shoulder. Noticing this Naruto quickly resealed the book as fast as he could to try and hide it from the girls and put the scroll before looking over to the toad sage.

"T-thank you so much for this…g-gift. Ero-sennin." Naruto told the old man with a clearly forced smile on his face while trying to stop himself from grabbing a weapon to throw at the perverted man. Course Jiraiya ignored these facts and only gave Naruto a thumbs up with the grin still on his face.

"You are welcome brat just make sure you study hard and practice those techniques as much as you can." He told Naruto than began to giggle perversely until he was slammed to the ground by a strong punch from Tsunade.

"I am going to just assume that you deserved that. Now come on pervert let's talk in the tower." Tsunade told her teammate before quickly saying good bye to Naruto and the girls before walking away leaving Jiraiya by himself to recover and make it to her office. Leaving only Naruto and his girlfriends left standing in front of the restaurant.

"So, Naruto what did he give you?" Ino asked him still curious.

"N-nothing important just…one of his pranks on me." Naruto told her taking a moment to decide what to call his gift and hoping that she would leave it at that.

"Oh, well can we still see this prank item Naruto-kun?" Ayame asks the younger boy who quickly regains his blush and started to try and stutter out an answer.

"Umm, you wouldn't understand it. It was just something that only him and me would understand. So, just forget about it seeing as I really don't want to explain how my sensei is picking on me." Naruto told her terrified of the reaction he would get if they actually saw what his 'training manual' actually was. Too bad for him Ino quickly grabbed the scroll before he could realize it thanks to being distracted by his nightmare. "Ino! Please give that back. Trust me you don't want to know what the idiot gave me." Naruto told her practically begging the girl to not open it; course this just made her smile mischievously at the blond.

"Well I guess we better look just to make sure Naru-kun." She told him then quickly opened the scroll and unsealed one of the books. She then simply stood there for a moment in confusion before finally understanding what Jiraiya meant and began blushing herself. Course at this point the rest of the girls began to try and look over Ino's shoulder and Naruto slowly backed away from what he thought would be a group of enraged girls soon enough. Though after all the girls saw what he was hiding the first thing they all did was blush as well.

"Who would have thought that one of our village's strongest and most respected ninja would be such a pervert as to give his own student porn as a gift and call it training." All the girls except Hinata couldn't help but thing but blush more as they began thinking more about what they could do for that 'training.' Course this made them all blush even darker but none of their blushes were darker than Hinata's who even had a small bit of blood beginning to run out of her nose.

"So Naru-kun has a set as well now…course this book seems like it is the ichia that is supposed to be coming out next month. Maybe Naru can let me borrow it and get my books early on seeing as he is so close to Jiraiya-sama. Plus, maybe we could act out a few scenes like page 22 of ichia ichia paradise…" Hinata began thinking at the same time as the rest of the girls were reacting though instead of thinking about the implied training she was busy putting herself and Naruto for the scenes she has read. Though soon the rest of the girls regained their focus on the real world while Hinata still daydreamed.

"Well. Naruto-kun I really hope you don't become a pervert due to having Jiraiya-sama as your sensei." Ayame told the boy in front of her with a small smile.

"W-what? You aren't mad at me for having those books and having my sensei imply us doing…that" Naruto asked the girls gaining a few giggles from most of them.

"Naruto-kun why would we be mad at you for something your sensei gave you? It was a prank pulled on you so there is no reason to worry about us getting mad about your recently developed porn stash." Ayame told the blond who still was shocked boy.

"Besides who knows maybe if you are good, we will help you train a new skill." Ayame added and laughed at the full body blush Naruto now sported. "Anyways I need to get back to work so my father doesn't throw a fit. See ya later Naruto-kun." She added before walking away from the group while purposely swaying her hips a bit more in front of the blushing blond who of course had his vision glued to the flirting girl.

"Damn….I will never understand girls." Naruto couldn't help think as he watched one of his girlfriends walk away after not getting mad at his new books and even hinting at sex.

"Oh Naruto you are so cute when you are embarrassed." Ino told her boyfriend with a big smile as she pinched his check. "Though like Ayame I need to head to work as well though still congrats on ranking up cutie." Ino added in then gave him a kiss on the cheek that made the blush that was beginning to fade to return with nearly as much force. Though after that he simply shook his head at the fact he would never fully understand the female mind and began walking home with Haku and Hinata; who just returned back to the real world just before seeing Ino give Naruto the kiss.

"..I really wish I had the confidence to do bold moves like Ino can. That's it my new goal is to get rid of my shyness so I can advance further in my relationship." Hinata thought now determined to change herself to be able to get closer to her blond.

(I am making it so that she betters herself by focusing on Naruto..which she mainly does in the anime; I am mainly doing this so I can give her some times of being able to publicly display her affection without it seeming completely out of character)

"Hmm, I wonder what I should do with the rest of the day." Naruto tried to figure out as he walked back to his house. Course there was many options for him to pick from but he didn't get to think for too long before he felt a gentle pull on his sleeve. When he turned to see what it was; he saw Hinata gently holding on looking nervous. "Need something Hinata-hime?" Naruto still asked with a small smile

"Umm, Naru-kun do you mind helping me train a bit." Hinata asked in her normal quiet voice while shyly poking her fingers together.

"Sure hime, let me just stop by my apartment real quick and we all can go train." Naruto told her happily not even noticing the pleading look Hinata was giving Haku. Though Haku did notice the look and simply sighed.

"Actually Naruto-sama I have cleaning I wish to do at the house. Please have fun training though." Haku told him while giving a small smile at the Hyuuga beside her who was silently giving the ice user her thanks.

"Ok then. Just don't work too hard Haku-chan." Naruto told Haku as they reached the door. He then quickly grabbed some supplies and made sure to drop of things such as his gift before heading out with Hinata to train.

"Okay, Hinata you can do this. Just try your hardest to be more confident, there is no one around so you can do this." Hinata mentally prepped herself for her real training as she walked with the unaware blond.

"So, what did you want to work on hime-chan?"

"Oh..um just some of the basics so I can refine them till I feel they are perfect and maybe some other things." She quickly told him after trying to think of a substitute for saying 'to try and be more confident and show you affection.'

"Huh, I guess that makes sense" Naruto mumbled thinking about his own skills now until they reached a training ground to use.

"Ok, so basics…how will we train this?" Naruto mumbled more to himself trying to figure out how to help Hinata as much as he could.

"W-well basics for me is my clan katas Naru-kun, and maybe some weapon practice." Hinata told Naruto who smiled now that he had an idea.

"Perfect then it will be easy to help you out." Naruto told her with a large smile before creating a large number of clones. "Ok so they are going to gang up on you while you try to take them out using only your basics. Now to start off they will only act like thugs until you want to up the difficulty by having me make them use more and more abilities." Naruto told the girl who paled a bit but still nodded her head.

"Well I may not be able to talk to him now that he sent a large mob of like 300 clones but at least we can talk during breaks...if I last that long." Hinata though as she looked around the large group of her copied boyfriend. "How does he even make this many shadow clones anyways. Isn't it supposed to take a lot of chakra…I mean being able to make yourself literally a one man army is such an over powered skill." Hinata mentally complained but still got in her stance and signaled for the clones to begin and her spar began.

Meanwhile Naruto was a ways away trying to go over all the basics he has as well trying to improve them somehow as well. Which of course means that he yet again created a mob of clones to fight. Which ended being what both of the two teens did for this training session much to Hinata's disappointment.

And I am going to end it here simply because I really want this up as early as I can. So, I hope that for those of you that kept my stories on your watch list you enjoyed the new chapter. I mean I made you all wait for it for way too long. Still I think I did a decent job for this chapter…I mean I know my writing still needs a lot of work but hey I am a bit rusty and I am getting better slowly as well.

Anyways I feel this is a good way to get some more romance in before I send Naruto out with Jiraiya for his training session/time skip…though I really don't know what I am going to do for that yet. I mean I might put some brief explanations of the training he will do but I don't want to waste all of a chapter just to do that. I also kind of don't want to skip it all and just say oh Naruto left but appeared instantly back so don't worry. By the way for those of you who want Hanabi in the harem yes she will be in there I just really don't want to touch it right now seeing as although I made her older in this she still is pretty young.

So what I am saying is any real relationship will wait until after the time skip or longer. Though I might just add some things showing Hanabi gaining a crush…I am not sure right now and will just have to decide before I post the next instalment for you all in like two weeks.

Anyways for now thanks for coming back to read this and Ja Ne.