Disclaimer: "Komadant Klink, I know noshing" and I claim no ownership to Naruto but he makes such a good hero... :D

Chapter 10 - Challenges

They ended up with an outfit that was mostly blue and grey, there was some orange but it was only trimming and was all that he could get in his outfit. He was surprised that he really did enjoy spending time with Hinata. After the way Sakura had treated him, even without her knowledge. As Naruto walked Hinata home, he saw Sakura. He continued to talk to Hinata, while giving only one disparaging glance towards Sakura.

Just after they passed her, she turned and hit Naruto yelling "what did you say Naruto?" This stunned Naruto and Hinata both. It also caused Naruto to drop the bags of clothes he had just bought.

Naruto holding his head looking very surprised. "Nani? What did I do? Jeez Sakura, why did you hit me?"

Sakura holding her fist out and shaking it at Naruto while breathing heavily. "What did you call me? And what were you saying about me?"

Naruto stood up and looking confused started to pick up his bags of new clothes. "Well Sakura, Hinata and I were talking about my new clothes and you were not even on my mind."

Sakura looked surprised. "You mean you weren't going to ask me out again after what you did to Sasuke?"

Naruto started looking very angry. "Sakura, I know how you feel, and don't worry. I will absolutely never ask you for a date EVER again. Let's go Hinata, I can tell where I am not wanted." He and Hinata left towards the Hyuga compound.

Sakura slowly opened her hand dropped her hand to her side as Naruto just walked off with Hinata. 'Did he just say what I thought he said? He will never ask me out on a date again. Yata!! No more annoying Naruto.' She then started to feel bad as she realized she hit him for no reason and he was only talking to Hinata. 'Wait he is going to have new clothes? What is with that? Oh well, we passed our bell test. Jeez Sasuke almost killed it for us. Good thing Kiba was able to talk him into working as a team. Had we had Naruto we would have been sent back to the academy.'

As Naruto and Hinata approached the Hyuga compound the guards were not sure what to do when Naruto to approached, but he was with Lady Hinata, they just decided to bow and allow them to pass into the compound. An elderly Hyuga saw the demon and walked up to him "what do you think you are doing here? You are not wanted." She then noticed Hinata "I am sorry my lady but he is not allowed here."

Hinata looking rather annoyed. "We are on our way to speak with father, but if you wish to stop my father from meeting my new teammate then you can tell him." All the color bled from the face of the elder. The elder quickly excused herself. Hinata just continued past the elder motioning an angry Naruto along.

Hiashi was working on some scrolls when he heard a knock. "Yes!"

Hinata and Naruto kneeled before the door as she opened it. "Um… F… Father, I am reporting in after successfully being assigned to a Genin team. I… I would like to introduce you to one of my teammate…"

Hiashi slowly turned and a look of surprise hit his face as he saw Naruto. "Please both of you come in." They entered as they were told.

Naruto bowed deeply, "hello Hiashi-sama. It is good to see you again. I hope things are well with you and the clan."

Hiashi was shocked that he showed more respect now then he did when he lived here, but did not want to show it. "Thank you Naruto. I am well. I am glad to see you well. Am I to understand that you are on the same team as Hinata?" Naruto nodded. "I request that you look after her as you did before, you were…" he turned away shocking Naruto. "You were asked to leave." He turned back to Naruto and Hinata. "So if you are on Hinata's team, I am to see more of you?" Naruto nodded. "That is good. I hope you can give Hinata some confidence."

Hinata Blushed, "Father…" She looked timidly at her father "you are not mad at him being on my team?" Hiashi shook his head no. "Then why was I forbidden from seeing him other than in class?"

Hiashi lowered his head. "This will not leave this room. Am I clear?" Both nodded their heads affirmative. "I was opposed to having Naruto removed from the compound, and not being able to see you, my daughter. He was and I believe still is a good influence for you," Hinata turned even a darker shade of red, "as her protector, and friend. You Naruto are a good boy, who I am hoping will become a great man. I know you became mischievous when you left. I am sure that was to garner attention. Am I right?" Naruto nodded, "so you will cut that down some now, so that I can keep the elders in line here now that word of your team will have spread."

Naruto bowed, "of course Hiashi-sama, also Kurenai Sensei told me to either quit doing it or tone it way down." Realizing he was talking in the familiar, "sir."

Hiashi laughed at Naruto's reaction. "Since my wife died and you left there has been little in this house to be happy about." Hinata turned her head in shame. "Please Naruto help Hinata become the heir she wants to be." Moving closer to Naruto's ear, "between you and me I think she will not be happy with me until she has proven herself to me and the clan." Backing away from his ear, "Hinata, Naruto, best of luck with your team and Hinata do not get in the way. Good day."

Hinata looked sad, and Naruto grabbed her hand led her away, and closed the door behind them. "He will be as proud of you as I am." He put on his biggest grin ever. She weakly smiled back at him. He grabbed his bags and started to head out. "Well I have to get home so that we can meet tomorrow for our first mission. See you tomorrow Hinata-chan."

She nearly passed out with that and unconsciously walked to her room and laid down her face beat red. The next thing she knew she woke up the next morning and went to breakfast, not even Neji's dark attitude brought her down. Hiashi could do nothing but smirk at her all morning until she left.

Naruto woke up in a good mood, he remembered the look on Hinata's face when he left, beet red and a million miles away. He was not sure why he was happy but he got cleaned up and then changed, just before he left he realized he was in the wrong clothes. He proceeded to take them off, not hearing the knock on the door. He realized something was wrong when he heard Hinata shriek. Hurriedly put on his new clothes, being beet red as he finished. He saw Hinata covering her eyes and Shino just standing there waiting shaking his head saying "we did knock."

Naruto sheepishly grinning and scratching the back of his head, "sorry forgot to put the new clothes on. Guess we can go now."

They reached the training grounds while Naruto was giving Hinata his hundredth apology. Kurenai looked on in wonder at what had happened that would have Hinata blushing and Naruto apologizing. "Ok kids, we are heading to the Hokage tower, for our first assignment. Keep in mind that they will not be glamorous at first. In fact let's hope they don't become so for awhile." She walked over to Shino and asked what was going on.

Shino simply replied "we walked in on Naruto changing. He forgot which outfit to wear." Kurenai just chuckled.

They arrived at the Hokage tower, meeting team 7. Naruto and Kiba exchanged simple hellos. Sakura gave Naruto an angry look, Sasuke, just looked indifferent. Kakashi said hello to Kurenai and Naruto, this confused Naruto. Kakashi explained "we should have lunch sometime, and I will tell you some neat stories."

Kiba leaned close to Naruto, "he will be late, and you can count on it." They both laughed, this caused Sasuke to look at them with a loathing stare.

"Ok team 7, you here is your D ranked mission. Enjoy. Team 8 here is yours." Both Sensei thanked the person giving them the mission, and headed back to their teams.

"Well good luck team 8, let's go team, we have some laundry to do." Kakashi said as he and his team left the tower.

"Ok team 8 we have to catch a cat." Kurenai explained.

About twenty minutes later Naruto was hiding behind a tree "I have target in sight." Naruto said into his radio.

Hinata about 5 meters away behind another tree, "copy, I verify visual. Wait Naruto, it is running, away… at me…" Static goes over the radio. "I have target."

Kurenai asked over the radio, "Please verify target. There should be a red bow on left ear, with the name Tora on the bow?"

"Check, bow on left ear, Tora on bow. Naruto, the cat is afraid of you stay back. S… sorry, Naruto, the cat just seems to be afraid of you…" Hinata broke in over the radio.

"Ok mission successful, head back to the tower with the cat Hinata. Shino and Naruto follow behind her and make sure the cat did not get away." Kurenai ordered over the radio. She heard a chorus of "hai" from her students. After returning the cat to the Fire Country's feudal Lord's wife, who smothered the cat with love, "good job team, we will have training session tomorrow morning. Naruto the look is good on you, the orange is interesting, but I like the blue and orange better than the previous orange only." Looking over at Hinata, "what do you think?"

Hinata blushed, "um… I like both…"

Naruto let out a laugh and nervously scratch the back of his head with his right arm. As they left the Hokage's tower Naruto noticed that he was not getting as many looks of hatred as he usually did.

Kurenai looked at her students, "you go ahead, and good job. I have to talk to someone about some training."

The three students looked at each other, not quite understanding why a Jonin would need training. "I have to admit that wasn't too bad. But when will we get a chance to prove our ninja skills?" Naruto asked.

Shino quietly answered, "When they trust us enough with the other tasks we will be given more responsibility."

Naruto nodded, "Ok. You guys want to go train some?"

Hinata responded, "S… sure Naruto-kun, that would be nice."

Shino shook his head, "I am sorry, I have prior engagements."

With that Naruto and Hinata went to training area 24, and started to spar. About ten minutes after they started Kurenai showed up. "Hello Hinata and Naruto. Where is Shino?"

Naruto replied "he had to go home, something about getting engaged."

Kurenai looked shocked but Hinata started to giggle. "He had something to do Sensei, which he had scheduled earlier." Hinata answered.

"OH!! That is what he meant. I was afraid he was going to get married or something like that." Naruto shaking his head, all Hinata could do was giggle at Naruto.

"Naruto, I have arranged for some special training for you in the morning." Naruto and Hinata looked at each other. "Now I talked this over with both your new trainer and the Hokage. The Hokage likes the idea, but it has not been done before." Naruto looked confused. "You will report to training area 36 at 6 am." Naruto's eyes went wide. "I am not much for taijutsu, but you would benefit from training with him. Now you are still my student but you will also refer to him as Sensei. Also do not, and I mean do not take any fashion tips from him, or I will send you back to the beginning of the academy and take another student." Naruto started sweating."Hinata you can join them but I am not sure you could deal with the workouts, but you can go along if you like." Hinata nodded. "Also do not burn yourself out with this training. I am also going to propose we do more missions per day. This will have two effects, one you will get more experience, and two you will be that much closer to getting better missions. And lastly it will also give you some more spending money." This brought a large smile to Naruto's face, and a smaller smile to Hinata's face. "Also Naruto, your trainer likes to use weights to help augment his training. So I advise you to head to the nice tailor we met and have him make you some leg weight holders, and possibly some bracers that can hold adjusting weight." Naruto looked confused but nodded.

The next morning Naruto was up and ready to go. He met a sleepy Hinata on the way to training area 36. They arrived just in time to see what looked like green blurs appear on the horizon and coming fast they stopped right in front of a startled Naruto and Hinata. They appear to be in a full green spandex suit, a bowl cut and huge eyebrows. The older and taller one was wearing a Chunin vest. He addressed them, "You must be Naruto and Hinata. I can tell you have the power of youth." Looking at Hinata, "your cousin is on my squad, but I will not tell him you are here." He gave thumbs up and glistening smile. "I hear you want to learn taijutsu. Or at least Kurenai wants you to improve on what you have, "looking at Naruto, "to become proficient at it. It will take a lot of hard work sweat, and pain to become excellent at it. Right Lee?"

The other bowl cut figure stood at attention, "yes Gai Sensei!!"

"I would like you to spar with Naruto, go easy at first so I can gauge his abilities."

Lee bowed and moved to a fighting stance, "come Naruto, let the fires of youth guide us!" Naruto noticed one thing about Lee had a smile the whole time and did not change. It looked like he was a happy and nice person.

Naruto took up a stance and started to attack Lee, the spar went on for ten minutes. Naruto did not land a blow until the very end, by landing on Lee's head. Gai then called a stop to the spar. "Naruto, your stance is poor, your footwork needs work." Naruto looked depressed."But I see huge potential in you. You have stamina, you are creative, and you do not seem to want to give up. Not nearly as much potential as in Lee, but he is dedicated to taijutsu." Naruto looked very confused but happy. "Naruto, I can train you if you are willing. As I said you have great stamina, maybe even more than my beloved pupil." Lee started to look depressed."Lee don't despair, for Naruto may even have more stamina than most Jonin." Both Naruto and Lee perked up at that.

"What do you mean Gai Sensei?" Lee asked.

"I cannot say, but if Naruto is willing he can elaborate. If not that is fine also." Gai exclaimed.

Naruto looked dejected. "I would rather not discuss it at this time Sensei, maybe later." Hinata's heart sunk as she remembered what Mizuki had said, but she did not believe he was the demon, he was Naruto.

"As you wish young Naruto. I can understand why you feel that way. I will leave the subject up to you. As for your taijutsu. I want to you get some weight holders for yourself. We will be using them to increase your speed, strength and stamina. Young Hinata you can also do this with us, it would be good to have a surprise on my other student who does not think that hard work can bring you success." Hinata nodded her head. "We will start by Naruto and Hinata sparing while Lee and I spar. When Hinata tires we will move to Lee and Naruto, we'll go for an hour."

The sparing lasted for about thirty minutes before Hinata started to tire, remembering Kurenai order to not overdo it she said she was done. She noticed that Naruto did was not even winded yet even though he was losing the spar. She also noticed that when she scored on him he would smile, yes smile not get mad at her. He would not correct her. He would even give her encouragement when she got a good hit on him. "Wow Hinata that was a great hit. Let's go again." This made happy and wondered why his style was so poor. Then she realized that no one would spar with him in the academy if they did not have too. She would have if they would have let the girls and boys do co-ed sparing.

So Naruto and Lee went at it. Near the forty-five minute mark Naruto was starting to land some blows, Lee was staring to get winded and sweating very profusely. Naruto on the other hand was sweating and only lightly winded. After the hour, Naruto was starting to get winded. Gai eventually decided to stop the sparing and work on form for the next hour. This would have made Naruto bored if it weren't for Gai, giving him complete attention in correcting his form and stance. Hinata watched happily as Naruto got attention without any of the usual stigma that he always seemed to receive, she knew that carrying the Kyubi hurt him but she was not sure how to help.

Lee was doing other exercises while Gai was working with Naruto. Hinata watched Naruto while working on her stance and doing some kata. After the hour of honing his stance Gai had Naruto and Lee spar again, there was a dramatic improvement in Naruto's fighting, while he was not able to land any hits on Lee he was able to block more of Lee's attacks. About ten they finished training, Naruto and Hinata thanked Gai and Lee for their help. Gai suggested some places to pick up the training weights so they would have them tomorrow. Naruto informed Gai he had already ordered some late yesterday and should be ready today. He also asked how much he should put in them. Gai replied that they would figure it out tomorrow morning but just bring them.

Naruto and Hinata left the training area and went into town and got the training weights per Gai's instruction. They took them home so they would have them for the next day's training. They stopped and had a small snack to maintain energy. They met with Kurenai and Shino at the training field, and then headed to the Hokage's tower for a new mission. They were able to complete two missions quickly and they then had the rest of the day to train and to themselves.

Hinata and Naruto talked for hours that day, well Naruto talked and Hinata listened. The subject included his pranks, who he pulled pranks on and the like. He also covered how he setup the pranks. This kept Hinata either laughing or giggling at the lengths he would go to just to make sure the prank succeeded and no one would get hurt.

The next day Gai showed them how the weight were used and how they would be adding progressively to them over time. The morning training went well. Both Naruto and Hinata were more tired than yesterday but felt good about what they accomplished. Gai also told them to not take the weights off other than to bathing this would help them become accustom to the weights more quickly.

Hinata's confidence continued to grow with the daily training, as did Naruto's skill. That was until about a month later Hanabi challenged Hinata to a bout after she had gotten home after an exhausting training round. Hinata had also just added weights to her training bands and was slower than she thought. Hanabi took advantage of this and brutally beat her.

Warned you about this Muhahahahaha!!

Hope you enjoy.