Hey readers, I really apologize for the super late update. I know I said something about like a few weeks, or something, but time seems to fly. Ever since I went back to school on September 5th, wow, it has been really crazy. I am taking AP classes, and they are so HARD!!! I also have like 7 periods, cause I am taking morning classes. (--). My friends say that I am crazy, but what do you all think? Ack!! Gotta stop with the babbling. Oh!.. I wanted to thank those who reviewed. I am really glad I am getting a lot of hits, but please REVIEW!!!! And here is Chapter 5...

Chapter 5- The Mission

Where we had left off...

"I want everyone to leave tommorrow at 5 in the morning. If you are late, I will give you a severe punishment when you get back." said Tsunade in a deadly voice to Naruto. "I want Haruno Sakura, Hyuuga Hinata, and Shizune to stay and recieve some of my medicines. The rest of you are dismissed, and remember DONT... BE... LATE."

Now back to the Story

"BEEP BEEP BEEP BE--CRASH!!!" Haruno Sakura woke up and looked at her, now smashed, alarm clock. She could barely make out the time, 4:00. Sakura wondered why she woke up so early and on a Saturday too. Then she remembered.

"Shit" she cursed and jumped out of bed. She took a quick shower and put on the Jounin clothes that Ino had picked out. She quickly put her rose-colored hair into a messy bun, took her bag with everything for the mission, and ran out the door.

The gate was far from Sakura's house, so she pumped chakra onto her feet and urged herself to go faster. She arrived at the meeting place at exactly 4:57, three minutes from 5. She looked around and was shocked. Everybody was here, even Naruto was here, wait... there was one person missing and that person was.

"AHHHH!!!! I made it!! its only 4:59 and 59 seconds. I am one second early, so I am not late, Hokage-sama." panted...Ino. Her hair was out of place and her face was the color of Sakura's hair because of the running. Tsunade, with everyone else sweatdropped. Sakura pounded Ino's head, "INO-PIG!!! YOU ARE SO..." "..troublesome" muttered Shikamaru. Her face flushed and was about to retort, but Tsunade reminded them of their so-called mission. Quickly, everybody seperated into the three groups. (A/N: In case you forgot, look at Chapter 4, cause i sorta forgot too XD)

The Hokage gave them the once over and said, "Be careful,watch your backs, and good luck." "Hai!" they replied and took off. Soon, the three groups charged off into there own destinations. This was really where their missions had started...

Tsunade saw them leave... There was a slight look of concern that crossed her face. She looked once more at the gate and walked off, into... Konoha's local bar for some sake... She really had to relax.

With Naruto, Hintata, Kankurou, Shikamaru, and Ino

They were moving quickly further away from Konoha. They could all feel the tense atmosphere. They jumped repeatedly throught trees in pursuit of their purose... and all of a sudden... "SLURPPPPPPP" They all ignored the sound and moved faster. "SLURPPPPPPPPPPPPP" It sounded like it came from one of the people in the front.(This case, its Naruto and Hinata). Shikamaru sighed "Oi Naruto, stop eating your pathetic ramen. There is a high chance of enemies hearing us while you disgustingly slurp that." Naruto turned around with a confused look on his face, and to everyone's surprise, he had a serious expression on his face... so who?

They turned to the person that was currently with Naruto...

Hyuuga Hinata... The mouths of Naruto, Kankurou, Shikamaru, and Ino hit the floor. There was the shy girl, Hinata slurping away. When she finished, she looked at the group "I-I'm s-sorry. I did'nt h-ha-have any b-breakfast..." and her voice trailed off as the team started off again, once more to the Hidden Village of Mist... with a permanent picture of the innocent Hyuuga girl, with noodles dangling from the corners of her mouth.

An Hour Later (Where everyone is a bit more serious)...

Hinata looked over to Naruto. She could tell that he was tense also, because the hyperactive blond would have usually been screaming about ramen by now, but his shoulders were stiff and his face was full of determination and rage. Hinata remembered how anguished Naruto was when the 3rd Hokage died because aside from Iruka-sensei, the Hokage was also another person that had believed in Naruto. She already had a bad feeling about this mission, but she will keep quiet…. At least for now and besides she was getting hungry...

Naruto could feel Hinata's intense gaze on his back, but he shrugged it off. His goal right now was to avenge the Third Hokage and kill that snake bastard. He had to do everything in his power to make sure that Orochimaru never harms Konoha again and he also had to protect HIS Hinata-chan. Naruto looked back to Hinata, and realized that she was in deep thought and he gave a small smile to himself. Somehow, just looking at her made him feel to happy.

Ino chewed the inside of her cheek in worry. She knows that something was going to go bad sooner or later. It was in her gut instinct. Women were always aware of things like that… call it a sixth sense or something. She looked at Shikamaru from the corner of her eyes. He had his brows furrowed because of deep thought. His fingers were joined together as they were racing throughout the forest. Their destination would take them a day and a half at the most….

Shikamaru was thinking real hard, but one word seemed to cross his mind at least a million times "troublesome" He hated anything that involved hard work, although this mission wasn't difficult, its the gut feeling that something bad was going to happen, whether or not this mission goes well or not. Anything that involves that snake bastard is just so TROUBLESOME. The thinking part is at least bearable, but the action part is what was really troublesome. It makes things much difficult because he is with his closest friends and…. Ino. He wrinkled his forehead with concentration. "How troublesome…"

With Temari, Chouji, Shino, TenTen, and Shizune

"...turn northeast in 5 more miles and if we keep going on that direction for around 5 hours, we will reach the Fire Country" said Shizune. After half an hour, Temari halted. Those behind her stopped as well. TenTen looked at Temari and asked "Why did we stop?" Temari closed her eyes for a moment, "I feel some unfamiliar chakra patterns." Slowly, Shino began to let out his bugs. After a few minutes, he said "They are not Sound, and they are not a threat to Konoha. They are not wearing their forehead protectors, they may be rouge ninjas for all we care, but I think its best if we change directions." "Why is that?" asked Temari. TenTen thought for a moment before answering "I think its because nobody is suppose to know that a large number of Konoha's ninjas are out of Konoha. If an enemy hostile to Konoha finds out, it could to used to their advantages." Shizune's brows furrowed with concentration, "We are going to go another way, but it will take longer, since the Fire Country is difficult to enter. Okay, this is the way that we are gonna do this..."

The ninjas that Temari sensed...

At the bottom of the forest floor, there were two unnamed ninjas. A male and a female. It seems like they wanted the privacy of the forest for their cough-hotmakeoutsession-cough. A hippo might have been flying in front of their faces, but they would'nt have even know because they were um... too engrossed into each other. (P) Too bad for the 5 ninjas that were forced to take another, more complicated direction because of these two lovebirds, althought they would'nt have been caught anyways...

Finally, With Neji, Sakura, Kiba,Gaara, Lee, and Sasuke

Surprisingly the journey back to the Hidden Village of Blossoms, wasn't as painful, and quiet as everybody anticipated. This was because of a Green Beast that was traveling with them. "AH! I COULD FEEL THE SPRINGTIME OF YOUTH IN ME!! YOSH! SAKURA-CHAN, NEJI-KUN, KIBA-KUN, GAARA-KUN, AND SASUKE-KUN, DO YOU FEEL THE YOUTHFULNESS THAT GRACED US??!!!! OH, HOW I WISH I COULD SHARE THIS GLORIOUS MOMENT WITH YOU, GAI-SENSEI!!!!!!" At this, Sakura sweatdropped, and looked at everyone else. They seemed disgusted with Lee's "youthful" speech...

Sakura noticed that with the exception of Lee and sometimes Kiba, the guys were extremely silent. She jumped faster ahead until she was next to Neji. She looked at him from the corner of her eyes and chuckled."Neji, you don't look very youthful with that frown on your face. You should learn how to be more youthful from Lee. Oh, I'll bring him to you right now! Gaara-san and Sasuke-san looks like they are going to kill him really soon, although Kiba-san looks amused..."

When she turned to go back to fetch Lee, Neji caught her wrists. "Sakura, don't you even dare to bring this kind of torture to me... Let them kill him for all I care, at least it will be quiet." he said it very coldly. Instead of being intimidated, Sakura started to laugh. "Haha, ok you win... but that look on your face was priceless!" Soon, they both became engrossed with their own conversations.

Sasuke looked at the backs of those two, and frowned. He wondered why Sakura was so opened and free with the Hyuuga, and became even more curious to know why Hyuuga flirted back with her. Sasuke literally had girls falling at his feet, but he realized with a weird feeling, that it took a blow to his pride when Sakura, did'nt shower him with affection. He was slightly getting more and more curious about the pink-haired beauty...

Gaara was twitching as Lee's speech got even more annoying. First he was talking about Gai, than youth, and then TenTen. Now he was talking about all three with a blush and look of happiness. Gaara couldn't care less. As of right now, he is just wishing that he could have finished off the green spandex wearing boy when he had the chance at the Chunnin exams. His frown got even worse when Lee started to talk about... Boys...

Kiba and Akamaru was in the back watching the whole interesting scenario that was unfolding before their eyes. They both would snicker as they watched the people in front of them. First, they saw Sakura and Neji flirting with a twinge of pink on their cheekbones, then there was Sasuke, who kept glaring at the pair and occasionally, his sharingan would activate. Then there was an extremely happy Lee talking around a million words, per minute. Next to him, Gaara looked like he was going to release Shukaku right on Lee's spandex ass. (-.-) sorry, i just couldn't resist) Kiba and Akamaru snickered and continued their little observations on their psychotic teammates...

Suddenly Neji stopped, and everyone followed suit. "We are going to set camp in this area. Then we will continue out mission at 5 sharp in the morning. Sakura and I will set up camp, Gaara and Lee go get wood for the fire, and Kiba and Sasuke get some water. Everyone come back here in half and hour." And then Neji and Sakura were left alone. "Sakura, help me pitch up the tents." he ordered, and they both got to work.

Both Gaara and Sasuke was in a bad mood. First, Gaara was extremely pissed that the Hyuuga boy would even think to pair him up with that nonstop talking, bowl haircut, spandex wearing, fuzzy eyebrows taijutsu user. Again, that boy was talking about his intense training with his Gai-sensei and his teammates. Gaara was half listening as his sand spread out into the forest to recieve the required amounts of wood. The sooner that he was done with this, the sooner that they could leave. Sasuke was pissed because Neji sent out everyone to gather stuff, while he was at camp ALONE with Sakura. He also started to work at a fast pace to be done, so he could go back.

After eating and cleaning up, they started toward the tent. The tent was big enough for all of them, but the problem was where the people were going to sleep. Sakura, on the other hand, just skipped to the tent and lied down. Then Neji moved in to lie next to her on her right side, so Sasuke, feeling challenged, lied down to Sakura's left side. Neji glared at Sasuke and he glared right back. While they were in their little glaring contest, Lee laid down next to Neji. Because Gaara did'nt want anything to do with the taijutsu ninja, he laid down next to Sasuke, although their relations were anything but pleasant. Then Kiba laid down to the only available space, next to Lee. Within minutes, they were all asleep.

Lets just say it was the same with the other 2 teams.

But we know that I won't live to write another chapter for this story...

With Naruto's group, they were all panicking due to the fact that the food supply was down to 2 measley cups of ramen, they looked at their only culprit NARUTO. Everybody, but one started to glare at Naruto. They could understand why Hinata was not glaring at Naruto, because she had been in love with him, forever. Ino marched up to Naruto and started going into harpy mode right there and right then. "WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING EATING ALL THE FOOD THAT WAS SUPPOSE TO LAST ALMOST A WEEK!!!!!! YOU ARE A MORON, A FREAKING RAMEN-EATING OGRE..." Lets just say Ino shouted a lot of cough-unkind-cough words to poor little Naruto.

Naruto covered his ears and glanced up to Ino with a look of confusion on his face. "Ino, weren't there around 35 cup ramens when we left camp?" With a huff, she nodded. "But Ino, I only at 7 that was supposed to be mine..." and his voice trailed off. Kankurou was then confused... "If Naruto ate 7, and we all ate 1 each a few hours earlier, and Hinata ate one long time ago, who ate the other 20? he asked intelligently... well at least for him. Suddenly...

"BURPPPPPPPPP" Everyone turned their heads to that extremely gross, and relieving sound. The next thing you know, they were all knocked out. They all had similar expressions, actually similar to the time, that Neji looked when he ate the curry of life. K.O. Now the purpose of this knocked outness was...

Hyuuga Hinata, once again. She had let out that burp and the intensity of that burp made her drop her bag, where 20 EMPTY ramen cups tumbled out. She looked at all of them and muttered a silent apology, then she went to sleep. It would take a while for everyone to wake up. They thought that Hinata was suppose to be a shy, innocent, and non-Ramen eating heiress to the Hyuuga clan. Apparently hanging out with Naruto was changing the girl a little too fast, in not such a good way. Well, as opposites attract, they become more and more similar...

A Few Hours Later...

Shikamaru was knocked out. Ino was knocked out, Kankurour was knocked out, also. Hinata was sleeping. Naruto was thinking. He was currently thinking about Hinata, and her love for ramen was a dream come true for him. Now they coud hang out at that Ramen stand all day eating and talking. He smiled at the thought and went back to sleep with Hinata by his side.

HAHA I had so much fun writing this, and I couldn't stop... Sorry but I just wrote it in one day, 2/4/07. I think that this is a pretty good place to end the chapter. I know that i promised to update like 6 months ago, but I am really lazy... PLEASE REVIEW .

I LOVE reading about how you guys think of this story. I know its random, but this is my first story... If You Review... I promise to update in less than 6 months! Haha, i'm joking, but please read and review, (it could be like 2 words, like Update SOon). YOU GUYS ROck!!!!

AznWitBra1nz (p.s. Thank you to those who read and reviewed chapter 4!)