Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I will never own Naruto….

"So what are you going to do Neji?" Naruto asked in an indifferent voice.

"I can't risk canceling the mission just because a nuke nin appears, especially if the nin is going to help me with my mission." The air around Neji and Naruto grew less tense as Neji replied to Naruto. "However the moment this mission is over you are returning to Kohona one way or another." Neji stated as he glared at Naruto who simple shrugged it off.

"That should be interesting considering that we will be on my home turf." Naruto stated as he looked up at the moon noticing for the first time that night it was full. 'It's almost time to switch lookouts.' "I have one thing to ask of you Neji."

Neji had a pretty good idea of what it was. "You are in no position to ask anything of me."

"Oh but this request benefit both of us, and it's quite simple. All you have to do is keep quiet about this whole incident until this mission is over with."

"How would this benefit me?"

"If we go back to camp right now and you tell them who I am, then a few of them might do something to jeopardize this mission. Suna is too important to me, to have any of those fools up there screwing up this mission." Naruto began to head back up to the camp hidden within the trees.

Neji readjusted his mask and began to follow Naruto knowing how hard his decision was. He would be keeping a rather big secret from his comrades and friends, and for what? So he could help save Suna, but his friends had been waiting for years on word about Naruto and none came. 'Damn it all.' He quickly entered their temporary camp, and sat down near the door. He watched as the Owl and Tiger masked leaf nins left out the entrance with a brief nod in his direction. Neji glanced around the room and noticed that all of the nins besides himself seemed to be asleep with their masks lying next to their heads. Lee and Kiba had laid their sleeping mats next to each other in the center of the room. Kiba was tangled up in his blankets where as Lee was laid on his side peacefully. TenTen seemed to have spaced herself out quite a number of feet away from the two. Nestled safely in her covers Neji noticed a kunai pack close to her left hand. Lastly he saw where the Sand nin stationed themselves. Temari was curled up next to the fire, her face completely relaxed. The Hawk chuckled inwardly knowing that it was probably the complete opposite. Naruto was sitting next to her leaning against the frame of the fire place. His face mask was still firmly in place; the cold blue eyes that looked out from behind the mask seemed to watch his ever move. Neji began setting up his bed for the night; it wasn't that hard all he had to do was roll out his sleeping bag. His fingers went up to take his mask off of his face. After it was off he closed his eyes and leaned his head back to have it rest against the wall behind him. Thoughts circled around his head untamed, but most of them involved the sudden appearance of Naruto. One memory grabbed his full attention.

Flashback

An 18 year old Neji had been throwing kunai at the same tree for the last hour, 'Damn it, why wasn't I ready?' In the last hour the tree had lost a majority of its bark to his kunai. Earlier that day Neji had taken on an A class mission, a bodyguard duty to a political ambassador. Of course he had been warned about the numerous assassins that would be going after the guy, but he didn't really care. 'Maybe I should have cared; both Lee and the ambassador are in the hospital.' Ignoring the pain in his right arm where a kunai had been lodged in his arm during the fight he kept on mutilating the tree in front of him. 'I'm going to have to have Hinata look at that later, it's nothing serious but it keeps shooting pain threw my arm and the fight was this morning.' He tossed another kunai at the tree, but this time he put a little chakra in it. That caused the kunai to go in one side of the tree and out the other. "I was the Rookie of my year and I still failed." Not realizing he had spoken aloud he launched another set of kunai.

"You may have been Rookie of the Year, but you saved your fellow ninja's life and still tried to accomplish the mission." Neji abruptly turned, cursing himself for not noticing the other teen's presence.

"Naruto I wish to be alone right now." Neji commented back to Naruto letting some of his killer intent leach into his voice.

"Does it look like I care?" Naruto asked while advancing towards Neji. "I'm not going to let you wallow in self pity over something like this, especially when no one was killed." Naruto stopped a yard away from Neji. "Do you realize how lucky you were? Those were mercenaries that were after the ambassador."

"Naruto are you done yet?" Neji asked in an emotionless voice. Neji had known that Naruto was trying to bring him out of his mood, but he wasn't going to make it easy for him.

"You don't want me to talk, fine." Naruto jumped a few yards backwards a dropped into a fighting stance. "Then how about a friendly spar?" Naruto plastered a goofy grin on his face.

Neji smirked realizing that Naruto had just given the perfect chance to let off some steam. "What are the rules?" He questioned as he got ready to fight. At that moment a burst of pain decided to shoot through his arm. Neji hadn't been prepared for it and let the pain show on his face before quickly covering it up. Looking at Naruto he immediately noticed the concern on his face. 'Shit he saw.'

"I guess we are going to have to take a rain check on that fight," Naruto announced as he approached Neji. "Let me see the wound."

Following his order Neji rolled his fishnet sleeve up and revealed his bandaged arm. Naruto began to pick at the wound, making Neji extremely impatient with the invasion of his personal bubble. Soon Naruto looked up at Neji with a seriousness that had seemed to be gracing his features more often than not. "It has a small trace amount of poison in it. We should go see Sakura right now." Neji nodded his head at Naruto.

"Looks like you're taking care of someone else's inability to take care of themselves." Neji commented while smirking, knowing that he could wipe the controlled seriousness off of Naruto's face.

"Yah I guess so," Neji watched as Naruto choose to ignore his friendly jab. The two set off towards Kohona at equal speeds. Neji had almost missed Naruto's last comment that seemed to be carried on the wind. "But you guess won't have to for much longer.

End Flashback

Lying down in his bed Neji glanced over at Naruto, who was still sitting next to Temari. "We never did have that spar," Surprise flickered through Naruto's blue eyes. Instead of continuing the conversation Neji rested his eyes and waited for dawn.

'He still remembers, funny I hardly remembered that myself.' Naruto thought to himself as he looked down at Temari, as if sensing his glance she stirred in her sleep. He had learned one to many times that Temari may look like she was asleep but could just as easy put a kunai to your throat with that thought he leaned his head back and closed his eyes, waiting for the time to pass by.

With Ino and Shikamaru

Ino had replaced her Tiger mask and was sitting on a lower level branch, where as Shikamaru was leaning against the trunk of the same tree quietly observing the terrain. They had already been out there for thirty minutes with out any interference from enemy nins, and Shikamaru wanted to scout the rest of the surrounding area. However he would have to tell Ino what he was doing and that would be too troublesome. So instead he was leaning against the trees thinking about Sand Fox. The guy was a mystery and despite Shikamaru's lazy attitude he wanted to figure out who exactly this guy was. At most times Karma seemed to be cold, but others especially when he was around Temari he let that cold shell break a little. Before Shikamaru could continue his thoughts Ino appeared before him.

"We need to scout out the rest of the area," Ino stated while looking around her. The forest seemed to get denser in the darkness, but that was part of the illusion of night.

"Let's stick together though and just scout out a small circle."

"Alright I just want to at least do something instead of just sitting there." Ino stated while glancing at Shikamaru. For an answer he took off towards the east and she followed. Adrenaline was starting to go through her body. Ino loved scouting out an area never knowing what she was going to find.

The two jumped rapidly from the trees scouting out the area below and above them. Shikamaru was inwardly thankful that Ino had suggested it, because it gave him something to do. However he wanted her to stick close to him just like she was, they where close to sand and some of those attacking nins could be waiting in the forest.

The Owl and Tiger masked Anbu had scouted a small portion of the surrounding area and were turning back when they noticed a chakra signal pretty close to where they were.

Chapter End

K that was the chapter, it was longer then the past ones, but still not really long. I'm working on it though .