Chapter 17
A/N: Thank you to everyone who remained patient during my very long hiatus. I got very busy! But! To reward you for your patience, there will be two more chapters out very shortly and this one of extra long!
krikanalo: Thank you very much!
Infinite Katalyst: I'm afraid that will will be the next chapter!
Stallion6: Indeed it does :)
DestroyerDRT: People put Hanabi with Inari? Wow, I'd never seen that before, and here I was wondering how that would come off!
Starfire201: Story Time was merely a companion, it's not necessary to read.
SuomiTytt: Soon! Soon, you'll have your Toshiro soon.
Candysmiley: Wow, thank you!
LovelySheree: Aww dear, I'm blushing!
Cloud Ex-SOLDIER: Sai is certainly in a predicament.
Death by manga: Oh certainly there will be drama! Mostly of a political nature.
Naruto stood in the hallway of the inn, early in the morning. Tapping softly, he crossed his fingers in hope that Sakura would be awake. He knew she tended to rise early.
Waiting for a moment, about to turn around and go back to his room, he finally heard the door opening softly. Turning around, he sighed with relief seeing Sakura standing in the doorway, wearing a long pink sleep shirt and some thick gray socks.
"Thank goodness you're awake, I couldn't sleep and I figured tha-" A finger to his mouth cut him off. Sakura smiled and whispered, "Ino is still asleep. Come in, but be quiet."
He followed her in, gently shutting the door, and relished in the naturally soft orange lighting that he was so fond of. It reminded him of the day he first left for Ryu when he said goodbye to her, except it was much sweeter this time with her being there too.
She laid down on her bed, sitting up against the crisp, white hotel pillows, and gestured for him to join her. He sidled up next to her, and wrapped her to him.
"I start training Yumiko today," she said in a soft voice, laying her head against his chest. He kissed the top of her head absentmindedly, and nodded. "I have some Chunin to train. I feel like all I will do is train people."
She shook her head. "Don't say that, I'm sure you will have political things to do here too. You'll need to know these things someday."
"I suppose I will, I mean, I haven't been here very long."
Suddenly, the couple was startled by Ino saying grumpily, "I can hear you guys talking. I'm trying to sleep!" However, the two couldn't take her seriously a her face looked somewhat puffy and she had a bad case of bed head. Peals of laughter were met with a pillow being thrown at them.
Later, Team Miyako sat in a training field waiting for the foreign ninja they had checked in only a few days before. Hoshi was starting to fall asleep as Nozomi read a book and Daisuke whittled a piece of wood with a kunai.
"I wonder when the others are getting here," Hoshi said, trying to shake herself awake. Nozomi shrugged, never looking up from her novel. "Whenever they get here, Hoshi."
Daisuke looked up from his woodblock. "Well, Kamenosuke and his team are coming now."
The girls perked up, looking to see 4 people approaching. "Hey Nozomi," Kamenosuke called, running up to her in a brown haired blur, and putting his face close to hers, before closing the distance with a peck on her lips. Her pale face flushed as she greeted her boyfriend, whose green eyes always held a mischievous twinkle.
The female teammate, Umeko Himura plopped down next to Hoshi, twirling a strand of her red hair in her fingers, and pushing her bangs out of her navy eyes. "Hoshi, look how nice Daisuke looks today," she whispered conspiratorially.
Hoshi frowned. "Is he your crush of the week, Umeko?"
Before any further gossip could take place, with a poof 3 ninja appeared, with fog revealing Naruto, Kiba, and a disgruntled looking Kakashi.
Umeko blushed at the sight of the two younger Konoha nin. Answering Hoshi's question, she said "Not anymore." All the Chunin rolled their eyes.
Naruto smiled brightly. "You must be the Chunin! But...wait, why are there 7 of you?"
A taller man in the back coughed a little, and smiled. "My name is Rai Hotaru, I'm the sensei of Kamenosuke, Hideki and Umeko."
"Ah, I see, well, moving on, I'm Naruto Uzumaki and these are my friends, Kiba Inuzuka and my former sensei, Kakashi Hatake."
Nozomi raised her eyebrow. "Kakashi the Copy Ninja? I've read about you!"
Lazily he stood there, "I suppose my reputation precedes me."
Kiba rolled his eyes. "Don't let Kakashi fool you, all he wants to do is read erotic novels."
Kakashi coughed. "So who is Hoshi and who is Hideki?"
Hoshi raised her hand and looked at her partner, the ever stoic Hideki Takeshi, who rarely spoke, but was quite skilled.
"Follow me please," Kakashi said, leading them away and shooting Kiba a dirty look with his free eye.
Naruto looked at a small scrap of paper. "I have Nozomi and Kamenosuke."
The young couple looked at each other happily, an Umeko practically salivated as she looked at the last instructor, Kiba.
Rai quickly wished Umeko good luck, as he had seen off all his students, stooped to pet Akamaru and left to meet up with the other sensei, Miyako.
Daisuke groaned inwardly as he eyed Umeko. The redhead had a tendency to be pretty annoying, and he wasn't familiar enough with her fighting style to plan ahead for their spar against the ninja with the large dog.
"So you two left must be Daisuke Yamamoto and Umeko Himura." Kiba said as he crumpled up his slip of paper and tossed it behind him. "I'm Kiba Inuzuka, and I'll be sparring with you and instructing you for the next 3 days or so before we switch."
"But you're about our age, what makes you more skilled than us?" Daisuke asked, arms folded.
Kiba frowned. "I'm a goddamned war veteran, kid! I have a badass ninja dog and the Hokage herself thought I would be good for this mission and sent me!" He said, getting worked up.
Umeko smiled at Kiba. "I'm sure you have plenty of skills to offer," she said with a wink.
Kiba sighed. "Alright, let's get to business. Attack me."
Sakura held the door open for Yumiko as she set foot in the hospital. The younger girl looked around happily, rarely having a chance to visit as Sakura filled out paperwork at the nurses station. As the pair prepared for their first day together, a call of "Yumiko!" made them glance down the hall.
A boy Yumiko's age walked over to them wearing surgical scrubs, except for the hat that was supposed to cover his light brown hair. Yumiko greeted him happily.
Sakura raised an eyebrow. "Yumiko, who is this?"
Naruto's cousin grinned and began introductions. "Sakura-sensei, this is Kenshin Takeshi, he is my teammate and he is training with his dad Takeo to be the next Head Surgeon one day. Kenshin, this is the one I was telling you about, Sakura-sensei my cousin's girlfriend. She's gonna train me!"
Sakura shook hands with the boy, who seemed to be in a little bit of awe. "S..Sakura Haruno?"
The Kunoichi nodded as the Chunin eyed the diamond marking on her forehead. However, he soon became distracted as Ino approached, no longer puffy in the face, and hair perfectly managed. She winked at Kenshin, causing the 15 year old boy to blush.
"We'll goodbye Yumiko-chan," he said as ran back to the surgical wing. The orange haired girl seemed disappointed to see him go.
"Have you started yet?" the blonde asked, her best friend. Sakura shook her head. "We're about to go on rounds where she will observe and then after lunch I will assess her skill at the Mystical Palm Technique."
"When does the hardcore battle training start?" Ino asked, filling out her own clipboard. Yumiko balked a little.
"Later on in the training," Sakura said, handing in her own clipboard and waving goodbye to Ino, Yumiko following.
Sakura looked at her new student, noticing that she now appeared nervous. "Yumiko, what's wrong?"
The girl played with some of her orange curls shyly. "I didn't expect to have to train for battle."
Sakura chuckled, "There's no need to worry, by the time I'm done with you, you could have the physical strength of 100 men."
The pair entered a room, where a nervous man sat on the bed. Sakura examined his chart, and then looked to her apprentice. "Do you know what's wrong with this patient?"
The girl looked at him, and grinned. "His leg is shattered."
Sakura nodded and started to treat him, fusing his bone back together with some healing jutsu. After completing that, she called the nurse to give him a cast and gave him instructions to allow his bone to heal fully. Done with one patient, she moved onto the next one, leaving Yumiko increasingly more and more excited.
Naruto looked at his two sparring partners, the couple Kamenosuke and Nozomi as they lay exhausted on the ground, panting.
"I gotta admit, Nozomi's genjutsu gave me some trouble and I did not expect the whole bamboo shooting out of the ground thing," Naruto said, barely even tired as he looked at the two. "But why is the genjutsu snow themed?"
Nozomi smiled tiredly, "My parents were from the Land of Snow."
"The Land of Snow! I went on a mission there once before it became the Land of Spring, I even know the daimyo Koyuki Kazahana."
"I especially loved her in the Icha Icha Paradise movie," said a voice. Naruto rolled his eyes, as Kakashi walked up with an equally exhausted Hoshi and Hideki following him.
"Of course you did, I bet you fantasized about that movie all the time before it came out."
Noticing the Chunin were looking at him a little weirded out again, Kakashi continued. "Apparently, Kiba needed medical attention."
Naruto immediately burst into fits of laughter. "Kiba needed medical attention after all the bragging he did?"
"It wasn't that bad Naruto, the Chunin girl overreacted and insisted on bringing me medical attention!" came Kiba's voice as he joined the group, his left calf bandaged up. Ino walked by him looking disgruntled, and Daisuke followed with an exasperated look. The group stopped to look at Umeko, who's face was as red as her hair.
"He was bleeding!" she insisted. "One of Daisuke-kun's earth spikes cut him on his leg."
Ino rolled her eyes at the girl, despite being somewhat like her in the past. "He would've been ok. Luckily I was about to go to lunch when you insisted I come with you."
"Sorry, Ino," Kiba said begrudgingly as the blonde walked back towards the hospital, her stomach gargling a little due to hunger.
"It was really weird though, she seemed worried until she got here," Umeko said.
"Probably because you made it sound worse than it was!" Daisuke said.
"You didn't tell her it was an emergency did you?" asked Hoshi, as she clipped her sweaty blue bangs behind her ear.
"She did," Daisuke said, pinching his nose.
Before Naruto could step in amongst the squabbling Chunin, a ninja messenger arrived in a puff of smoke. The group recognized it as Nakina's aide, the young Fujie.
"Uzumaki-san, Hatake-san, Nakina-sama is calling you to an emergency council meeting." The woman said.
"An emergency council meeting? Why are we being summoned to an emergency council meeting?" Naruto asked, furrowing his brows.
"We recently received a message that the Tsuchikage, Onoki, has been assassinated in his sleep. Kitsuchi is trying to maintain control, however, riots have broken out all over Iwagakure."
"What does this have to do with Ryu? It's a small village that keeps mostly to itself." Kakashi asked.
"Ryugakure as of yesterday was invited to a summit of small ninja villages who were dissatisfied with being excluded in the 4th Shinobi World War. Being the closest to Iwagakure and having recently struck a treaty with Konoha, some factions are accusing Ryugakure of the assassination, or hosting refugees who were behind it."
"That's right, Ryugakure does take in refugees," began Hoshi. "My entire family was from Kirigakure, but left during the civil war."
"We need to convene our council straight away Uzumaki-san, and Nakina-sama requested yours and Hatake-san's presence." Fujie said sternly.
"What about me?!" Kiba cried.
"She did not mention you," the aide said before looking back at Naruto and Kakashi pointedly.
"Ok then, lets go! I won't let you guys take the blame for the assassination of Grandpa Onoki. But it's hard to believe he was taken out so easily." Naruto said sadly.
Kakashi looked to Kiba. "You're in charge of the Chunin for the rest of the session. We probably won't be back until later, please inform Sakura to send a message to Tsunade regarding what our status is. She has probably already heard about the late Tsuchikage."
Kiba nodded an watched as his comrades ran towards the center of the village with Nakina'a secretary. Finally, he turned back to the 6 Chunin considered most promising by the village.
"Ok guys, I want to take a page out of the book of a crazy ninja I know, and make you run laps!" He said, pouting that he was stuck there with them.
The 6 teens groaned and picked themselves up to run laps as directed, most of them glaring at Kiba.
A/N: I hope that was long enough for you, and 2 more chapters will be out really soon. I hope you all had a great New Years. Please leave a review, I look forward to reading them!