I must have fallen asleep yesterday and nobody bothered to wake me up because the next day, I had to silently slip back to my house to get some breakfast. I made some toast and cereal, not much to get me awake again. I headed up to my room, sill with a piece of toast in my mouth, to go and see if I could find his headband. I knew I had it somewhere around here, then I remembered, I had put it on the mantle with all of my pictures. I decided to leave it right where it was and wait to see if he wanted it back. Around 9 or so in the morning, I finally heard a knock on the door while I was organizing scrolls in my room. I leisurely walked over and opened the door, being sure to take my time.

"Oh so you remembered where my house was?"

"It hasn't been that long, I bet you still know where mine is"

"True true, did you need something?" Playfully toying with him is quite fun.

"I figured you would want to see me after all this time, if you don't want to then I'll just leave"

"It is your choice, here I was going to give you your headband back and everything"

"Well I can get my headband, then I'll be off"

"Alright, it's in the living room"

He walked right past me and into the main corridor. What he didn't notice was that I was standing in the doorway of the living room. I grabbed his headband and slipped it into my pocket. It took him a good ten minutes before he came back.

"Are you lost by chance?"

"Not anymore, now where was it?"

"I said in the living room, I never said where"

"So that's how it's going to be?"

He rummaged through things for a while until he finally got that I had it.

"Are you going to give it to me or what?"

"Who said I have it?"

"If you don't have it, then you wouldn't mind me checking"

He slid onto the couch I was sitting on, and put his arm across my shoulder.

"You can't just give me it?"

"That would take the fun out of it"

I turned to him and waited to see what he was going to do. He raised his hand to my face and caressed my cheek very gently. He pulled our lips together and slipped his tongue into my mouth. My mouth was fully occupied and my tongue was being brushed, rubbed, and tapped. His tongue curled around mine and then recoiled. His lips detached from mine as he returned to his original position on the couch.

"Here, take your headband back"

"Finally, hey do you think I could stay here with you for a while?"

"Sure, you can stay in this big place with me, not like I have any other company here, but you do have to stay in a different room"

"Of course"

"But don't stay too far"

"Alright then"

"Oh and Kakashi wanted to see us at the training grounds about an hour ago"

"So then he might be there by now?"

"Maybe"

I showed him to his room then they headed out the door. When we had gotten to the training grounds, Kakashi was amazingly there already. He had just wanted to tell us something that we had already thought was going to happen, Itachi and I were going to be on the same team once more. If we had to, we would be sent on two man cell missions, but for the most part, just be with Kakashi for a while. He had another task that day that he had to attend to, so we were done for the day. I smiled then hugged him. I hugged him, leaning my head on his chest.

"Promise me you won't leave again"

"Of course I won't leave. I do have something to tell you, I found a way to help you control the bijuu"

"Really? How?"

"All I need you to do is look into my eyes"

I was hesitant at first, but he seemed to know what he was doing. I shut my eyes and started down the hallway to the sealing room. He grabbed one of my hands and I opened my eyes right into his Sharingan. I was back in the hallway, but this time Itachi was there with me.

"How did you…"

"Just follow my lead, I'll need your help"

We walked down the hallway and up to the sealing room. It was abnormally windier than usual.

"Ah I see you are back, I have not seen you in a while. You even have someone else with you. I vaguely remember you. You are that boy from a few years ago, correct? What do you want?"

"You'll see"

He activated his Mangekyo Sharingan and glanced over at me. I shut my eyes and activated my Drakugan, attempting to figure out what he was doing. We were not going to really fight it, all genjutsus. We wouldn't stand a chance against a full powered bijuu. We were just pushing it back as far as we could into the room. I distracted it while Itachi went up to it and caught it in a few chakra chains. He touched its neck, did a lot of complicated handsigns, and ended with a half tiger. It turned the chakra into real chains, with the indestructibility of chakra. Itachi disappeared and grabbed my hand in the real world. I immediately snapped out of it.

"There that should help. You should have an easier time with it now, it cannot fully break one tail now"

"I have many questions for you"

I pestered him a bit with all of my constant questions.

The next day, I got up early, ate breakfast, and silently headed out the door. I walked down the path of the river, to the shrine of the ninjas past, the Hero's Memorial. I try to head there every day before the missions, just standing there in silent remorse and meditation. In the rain or snow, I still stay there for an hour or two every morning.

"I thought I might find you here"

"Itachi, what did you need from me?"

"Informing you that we have a mission today"

"Alright, I'll be there"

"Do you come here every day?"

"I try to, sometimes I swear that I can feel them here"

"I wouldn't be surprised if they were watching"

"Something like that wouldn't surprise me either, maybe one day I'll see them again"

"I'll try to help you with that"

"Thanks, shouldn't we get going to the gates now"

We had a C ranked missions to do, something about guarding a princess on her way back to her kingdom. We got to the gate and Kakashi was there with the princess they were talking about. She was quite snobby, egocentric and very needy. Right after we got out of the village, I was about ready to kill her already.

"Geeze, I hate all of you! Except you, you're kind of cute for a ninja"

She was obviously pointing to Itachi and that ticked me off a bit.

"You haven't talked the whole time you've been guarding me. Go get me some water, I'm thirsty"

She was referring to me, but I just kept walking, completely ignoring her.

"Fine ignore me, I'm tired, you should carry me there"

I lunged at her with my katana, Itachi grabbed my shoulder and stopped me about an inch from her neck.

"Just let it go, have Kakashi deal with her"

"Fine, but if she comes near me again, I'm going to cut off her head"

We had finally gotten to the half way point, a small town on the outskirts of the Fire country. Kakashi had gotten us a hotel, only two rooms though and he wanted a room to himself.

"You all have to distribute yourselves among the beds, there are only three of them, so two of you will sleep in the same bed. The princess immediately jumped onto the bed with Itachi, begging to sleep in his bed.

"Princess, if you don't mind, I would rather sleep with Mariah tonight"

"You're making me sleep alone!"

"If you want, you can sleep with my younger brother Naruto"

"Forget it"

I chuckled a bit at her frustration. I got into my pajamas and climbed into the bed with Itachi.

The next morning, we had just gotten on our way and she was fairly quiet. A few miles later, she started on her ranting again. I tuned her out, but something caught my attention.

"You are so impolite, your parents must have been horrible people to raise a child like that"

I let the chakra flow out and lunged at her, knocking her into one of the surrounding trees. I charged a Rasengan to finish her off, but Itachi grabbed my hand and pulled me into a deep kiss. I was so surprised that the chakra disappeared and I kissed him back. I was blushing by the end, and everyone was looking at us oddly the whole way there. We got to the castle, the king and queen were there waiting for us.

"You got our little girl here safely, good job"

"No thanks to the blonde girl"

I guess she didn't even know my name.

"Oh well, you're still here and that's all that matters. You blonde girl, what is your name, age and rank"

"Me? I am Mariah Namikaze, 19, a Jounin part-time ANBU"

"You are perfect to marry our son"

"Wait, do what!?"

The prince walked in and a couple of guards took me and shoved me into a nearby room with him.

"You should know that I am never going to agree to this"

"Like you have a choice"

"I think I do"

I pulled my hand behind my back and blew him through the wall with a Rasengan. I stepped over him and walked out of the castle with Itachi at my heels.