Ino ran to the bus stop.

It was right there! So close!

Gathering her chakra to her feet, she ran faster and faster until she was right there. She put her change in the little box thingy, and, breathing heavily, planted herself in the nearest seat. And so she was off to the mall for a nice, relaxing day of shopping with Sakura.

She shut her eyes. Her stop was a little ways away from here, and so she could stop and rest for just a little bit...

Yank.

"Mmrm," Ino muttered. It was meant to come out as "Don't do that."

Yank.

"Hey..."

Yank!

"Ouch! Who the-" Ino looked into a chubby baby face with a large purple bow in her dark curly hair, and two large eyes staring back at her. "Well, if it isn't the grocery store baby. Hey, Akane," she said, smiling.

"You know her?" asked the guy holding Akane.

Ino nodded. "I changed her diaper in a grocery store last week."

He wasn't the hot guy that had been so scary. He was the picture of one of those giant-teddy bear types. He was kind of big, and muscular, and probably would have terrified her under normal circumstances, but somehow the tiny baby he was carrying with him made him look sweet and gentle.

"Oh, yeah. Shika mentioned you. You're the diaper changing girl."

He smiled.

"Yup, that's me," said Ino, concluding that "Shika" was the boy. "I remember her. And her big red eyes."

The guy stuck out a hand. "My name's Akimichi Chouji. I was on his Genin team. Obviously, you know Sarutobi Akane. Our Genin team sort of adopted her. Only when her mom's tired, though." He grinned.

Ino shook his hand, smiling genially as well. "My name's Ino. Yamanaka Ino."

Chouji relaxed back into his seat. "Nice to meet you, Ino."

"Nice to meet you too, Chouji. So tell me: Is Akane a handful, ever?"

Chouji looked around the bus. There was one other man, sitting in the back, who was completely engrossed in his newspaper. His next words explained his caution.

"Her mom's a Genjutsu specialist with a rare Bloodline, and her dad was an everything specialist. So... yeah, she gets into a bit of trouble once every now and then. Especially since she inherited the bloodline. Once we found the cat bringing stuff to her. And this is the world's crankiest cat. Obeying Akane's every whim. We're not sure how, but we think she put a genjutsu on the cat."

Ino laughed appreciatively, and Akane stood up and yanked on Chouji's hair. "Chou-ji!" she said.

"Yes, Akane?"

"Chouji!" And then she started to babble.

When she stopped, Chouji gestured to Ino. "Akane, this is Ino. Ino-san. Say hello to Ino-san," he said in a baby voice.

"Ino!" said Akane happily. "Ino Ino Inoinoinoino!" She said it so fast it started to sound like "no."

Ino picked Akane up and smiled at her. Chouji pulled her away and held her high up in the air. "Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!" she giggled happily. A bell suddenly sounded to let them know that someone's stop was approaching.

"Oh, that's our stop," said Chouji, looking up and pulling Akane down. "Once again, it was nice to meet you,Yamanaka Ino."

"Nice to meet you, too," she said. "Tell your friend- Shika?- I said hi, too." she said.

That was when she looked at the stop number.

Oh, -

"I missed my stop!" she said, and flew off the bus in the opposite direction of a confused Chouji and Akane, whipping out her cellphone and finding it was on Silent and had 10 missed calls from Sakura. She quickly dialed Sakura's number.

"Sakura, you are so not going to believe what happened to me today!"

Hello! (Warning: This is a very long AN. And I tend to write those frequently.)

This hasn't got any particular direction as of yet... so... yeah. Also, I don't hang out with little kids much, but what Akane does is what they do in my experience (laugh and giggle and babble at you. So very cute!).

Anyway, this will be continued, but I've got other stuff I'm working on (y'know, school... all that junk, and also I have another account on here for various reasons... so I have to keep that one up too. xD.)

So I hope you liked it, and please review. I've got a possible third chapter, though due to events that I had not foreseen but happened in this chappy, it's got to be revised.

Thanks for reading, and see ya later!