A/N: Here it is chapter six, including the prologue, three if we don't count it. If it isn't immediately obvious, this story will follow the anime, I plan on ending it around either the end of the chunin exam, or the Tsunade arc, not sure which. Then comes the sequel, hopefully by that time I will have seen the more of the anime, as I don't read the manga and thus have limited knowledge of the time-skip.

It is now time to end Rapy's silence.

Wow…no crazy ramblings… I think this is scarier than my insanity.

I still don't own Naruto, but if I had Shukaku or Itachi behind me, I'm sure I could convince Kishimoto…yea, just read.

"Spoken word"

'Thoughts'

"Demon speech/speech between host and demon"

"Jutsus"

"Snake/Master speech"

'Demon thoughts'

(Konoha, Hokage Stone Monument)

"Insect Pillar Jutsu"

Shino's insects went on the attack, intent on taking Neji out or at least pushing him into Naruto's trap. Neji, however, was waiting for any attack that might come and deftly dodged out of the insects' path…and right into Rapy's; she struck without preamble, wrapping around Neji's legs.

"Shino, behind you! Focus on Kurenai!"

Shino turned to find himself staring down their new sensei.

"So you were aware of our position after all. If Neji wasn't prepared for it your initial strike would have been very successful. Now, show me what else you've got."

Shino shifted his weight into a standard defensive stance, his insects pooled at his feet. He was also quite happy to notice that his Kikaichu had snuck behind Kurenai with out her notice.

"Nice try."

He barely had time to duck the arm flying for his face and was met with a low kick that swept him off his feet. 'Just a clone, I'm in trouble.' He regained his balance and rushed at what he hoped was his sensei, to catch her off guard; the two were soon locked exchanging blows and he could tell she not pulling many punches. 'Got to finish this, she is a relatively new jonin, we are her first squad; hopefully that means she isn't familiar with Aburame techniques.'

"Paralyzing Insects: Swarm"

Shino's insects flew from his arms to swarm around Kurenai and began to drain her chakra, only to find another clone.

"I had expected more from your abilities; perhaps I was wrong in placing you on my team."

'Got her.'

"Really Shino, you should be aware of the properties of Team 8, you can do better than this."

"Indeed, I can."

"What?"

"Paralyzing Insects: Swarm"

A loud buzzing was heard from twenty feet behind Shino, from the bushes. Kurenai rolled out of them covered in the Kikaichu.

"Your mistake was taunting me; it allowed one of my females to find you by your voice vibration and led my males straight towards your position."

"Not bad, kid, now get them off."

Once all of Shino's bugs were accounted for the pair turned to watch Naruto and Neji, who was no longer there.

"Give it up; Destiny has already determined this fight."

Naruto and Neji had moved quite a ways off. Neji had used a substitution jutsu to escape and had ducked into a nearby clump of trees; the same clump where Naruto's shadow clones were waiting. An Eight Trigrams Palm Rotation had dispatched them, and Neji was once again facing Naruto and Rapy.

'Here's where Maru-sama's training pays off.'

(Deep in Konoha's forests, two years ago)

"You have improved greatly Naruto; this will be one of our last hands on training sessions. It is time I gave you the tools to further your training on your own, here."

Orochimaru handed Naruto two scrolls.

"That first scroll is the one that summoned the egg from which Rapharsha was born. Sign your name in blood over my name. That will name you as her permanent master, you will be able to communicate with her and use her more efficiently. That second scroll is the Snake Summoning Contract, you know what it does from your studies; sign your name at the end."

The first scroll was easy for Naruto to sign, but the second one…

"Are you sure Maru-sama?"

"Quite, consider it, and the jutsu I'm about to teach you, a reward for your hard work over the years."

"Thank you Maru-sama! With this I can beat Sasuke easily."

"No Naruto, use Rapharsha freely, as you convinced them you created the jutsu you use with her, but the summoning and new jutsu I'm about to teach you are to be used in dire need only, not for petty competition, understood?"

"Hai, I won't use them unless absolutely necessary."

Orochimaru smiled that creepy smiled and chuckled lowly.

"Yes I'm sure you will; now we still have a lot of ground to cover."

"Alright Rapy, let's show this arrogant bastard what we can do."

"Right behind you, Naruto."

"Byakugan"

Neji settled into the traditional Gentle Fist stance and rushed at Naruto.

"I'm toast if those strikes connect, distract him."

"Don't I get pleasssse and thank you anymore? Ssssuch an unappreccciated job."

Naruto jumped back and cursed his luck. 'Great a hormonal snake and Gentle Fist user, just what I need.'

"I'll find you those rodents you love tonight, no matter how tired I am, how's that for a please and thank you?

"Much better, if thossse handsss are a problem, take out the legssss."

Naruto barely dodged a palm sent for his arm and winced as he felt a few chakra points close. The hesitation was enough for Neji to land a major hit to both of Naruto's arms.

"We are going to have a serious talk about your timing later Rapy!"

"Ssssshould've dodged fasssster or moved fasssster, it'sss hardly my fault you're inflexible and can't move quickly."

"It's as I said, a failure is a failure after all."

"Damn you Neji."

"Now's your chance brat, strike him while his guard is lowered."

"How the hell am I supposed to do that? My arms are kinda useless right now."

"Idiot, force our chakra through the closed points, it will open them easily if you apply enough force. Do it quickly while he's still ranting about that destiny crap, I refuse to lose to someone like him."

'Can't hurt to try.'

"Rapy, come here, or no food for a week."

"What for?"

"Make Mr. Asshole there think he's won, act like your making sure I'm ok or something."

"Right, thisss ssshould work easssily. Noticcce my sssarcasm."

Rapy did as she was told and Neji smirked triumphantly.

"So Shino was up to par, Neji how did Naruto do?"

"I'm afraid his skills are less than adequate; he went down in less than four minutes."

Kurenai and Shino had arrived on the scene. Kurenai looked worried and Shino was as impassive as ever.

"Four minutes my ass, bastard!"

"How can this be?"

Naruto had successfully forced his chakra through his arms and had a clone holding a kunai to Neji's neck. Kurenai and Shino quickly retreated a safe distance. Neji took care of the clone with a quick palm turn to its chest.

"Haven't you learned? Your clones don't work on me."

"Then it's a good thing that it's Rapy you should afraid of. Snake Style: Serpent Fist"

Naruto rushed at Neji with Rapy wrapped around his right arm. Neji moved quickly though and sent a strike straight for Naruto's right elbow. Naruto rolled his arm and used his chakra to force it out of his socket; Neji's strike almost hit just after and missed completely as the arm rolled out of the way, leaving him defenseless for Rapy to counter-strike. She bit and released and Naruto darted out of Neji's strike range.

"What was that?"

"That was you losing, that tingling in your arm that's spreading is your body being paralyzed. Looks like destiny was wrong."

"Well done Naruto, turning the tables on your opponent like that, I can see this team has great individual skills, now you must learn teamwork. Shino, fix-up Neji so we can talk."

Kurenai had returned with Shino at her side who quickly got to work relieving his teammate of his unfortunate predicament. Neji rolled his arms and stretched once Shino's bugs had neutralized the poison. He still felt a bit numb, but it quickly passed.

"Good, now as I'm sure you're all aware Team 8 specializes in reconnaissance and tracking. Neji your Byakugan, Shino your insects, and Naruto your snake all make you excellent in this field, but those three things also makes you incredible fighters when it comes to small scale combat. However, you are all highly independent, I want you to learn to work with your teammates, the mission's success comes before all else and you must be able to work together to ensure that it does succeed. Naruto, Shino it took you a few minutes to distinguish that relatively mild genjutsu, I'm going to teach you how to recognize, dispel, and create genjutsus. Neji as their senior academy graduate, and time with Guy, I want you to teach them more taijutsu and such, in and out of team training sessions. It is my hope that you will become highly efficient working separately and together, who knows maybe become even best friends. That is all for today, report here tomorrow at eight a.m. sharp."

Kurenai disappeared in a swirl of leave leaving the three genin by themselves.

"So it would seem you two have pretty advanced skills. I would teach you more hand-to-hand combat techniques, but I am correct in assuming you have family styles or such to improve upon?"

Naruto and Shino nodded, Rapy slithered up Neji's leg to his neck and stared in his eyes before nodding and returning to Naruto, Neji raised an eyebrow.

"She's just showing she approves of you as teammate, but if you aren't going to teach us, how are we supposed to establish teamwork?"

"My guess would be to train together outside of team training; logic would also state that we spent leisure time in each other's presence."

"Shino makes a good point; I am free on every other day, Naruto?"

"Anko doesn't care as long as I'm back before midnight; I think she's happy when me and Sasuke are gone so she can sneak off with Kakashi, I saw him hanging around our house lately. What about you Shino?"

"I am currently in the middle of a family project; I am only free Tuesday and Thursday mornings and Monday and Friday evenings. Speaking of which, I should be going."

"Then we should meet every Tuesday and Thursday morning, and Friday evenings too."

"Right, then I must be off, farewell to you two."

"I guess I should be going too-"

"Naruto, walk with me back to the village, we might as well get started now on the teamwork thing, right?"

Naruto and Neji headed down the path back to the village, chatting about little things and learning little things about each other. Rapy had slithered home, bored with their conversation when they stopped at a bench and continued talking.

"It is getting quite late; I should get back to the Hyuuga compound, thank you for keeping my company Naruto."

Neji stroked Naruto's cheek gently and was gone in a puff of smoke, leaving a wide-eyed and confused Naruto.

"Kyuubi! What the hell was that?"

"How should I know brat, I know nothing of your human mating rituals."

"M-m-mating!?"

"That was a display of affection he just showed you, so I could conclude that it was mating, considering you two have never spoken before today to be called friends."

"Whatever, I do not have time to be questioning my sexuality. I'm here now, what did you want from me?"

"It's time I started getting something in return for you using my chakra, and only half-assed at that. Your Maru-sama knows nothing on how to correctly utilize demon chakra, I'm going to be taking over your chakra training from now on, and I also have a few jutsu that will come in handy that you could only use with my chakra."

"And what do you want in return for this?"

"A mate."

"A WHAT!?"

"I want a mate, that means you getting one too, male or female, I'm not picky just find me someone."

"Wait, how am I finding you someone for you? No one besides me can talk to you."

"Use your brain sometime, it's there for a reason; obviously you have got to find another jinchūriki."

"You do know there's a possibility I will never find another one, right?"

"We will find others; just make sure you don't screw it up when we meet them, understood?"

"Right…so what chakra techniques and jutsus will you teach me? Maru-sama really didn't give me a lot."

"First you must better utilize my chakra…"

(The next morning)

"Listen up; due to Naruto graduating top in his class and Shino in the high percentile I have decided that we will be accepting a C-Rank mission. We are an escort, this will double as training as it will emphasize teamwork."

Kurenai wasted no time in briefing her genin on the mission specs. The Hokage had chosen her team specifically so that they may gather more recent information about what was happening in the Land of Waves, the escort mission was just a convenient cover-up.

"There will be no unnecessary risks taken; there have been rumors of an S-Ranked missing-nin in the region, you are to leave him to me, we meet at the gates in one hour where we will meet up with our client, understood?"

"Right."

"Heh, this will be easy."

"This will give me a chance to collect new samples for my hive."

"One hour, don't be late."

A/N: Wow, longer than I had anticipated, sorry if the fighting scenes sucked, it was my first attempt at them, I'll try to be more detailed or jazz them up in later chapters. Expect the next one by/on Sunday.

--Insect Pillar Jutsu – see last chapter.

--Byakugan – I'm pretty sure everyone knows Neji and Hinata's kekkai genkai, at least I hope, if not Wikipedia has wonderful info on it.

-- Paralyzing Insects: Swarm – Inspired by Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2, Shino's insects swarm around his opponent and inject a paralyzing agent and distracting them so that Shino can move in for more damaging attacks.

-- Snake Style: Serpent Fist – A dual attack Naruto uses with Rapharsha. Naruto dislocates his left or right arm with his chakra giving Rapy free reign to move the limb as she wants while she is coiled around it, as such a high level of sync is needed to coordinate both arms. Generally Naruto uses the arm he still controls to distract or occupy his opponent so that Rapy can get close enough to inject a poison.