A/N: Yeahh...this chap was a bit short and boring...read my bottom author's note...but yay for Hidan! Oh the OC in this chapter will play no signifcant role whatsoever in this story. Just thought I'd let you all know. R&R s'il vous plait. More exciting stuff to come soon. Oh and I have no clue why it's not double spaced in this beginning because I so did double space it in my document and when I uploaded it...it came out undoublespaced for a portion of the story...

Chapter 3

Ino groaned as the sound of a loud ringing filled the room. She began slapping the digital clock, hoping to find the snooze button, but still the sound commenced. Looking at the digital clock sitting beside her bed, she saw that it was only 6 A.M. It took a while for her to realize that the phone was ringing instead. She picked up wondering who the hell bothered to disturb her beauty rest. "What do you want?" she asked groggily.
"Miss Yamanaka?" asked a cool voice on the other side. "This is the Hilton Hotel wakeup call and we are calling on behalf of a Mr. Akasuna Sasori who requested this call for you."
"You people are daft," she said, hanging up the phone. Closing her eyes once more, she let herself fall asleep.
It seemed like a few seconds later that a knocking persisted at her door. God, what now? Getting up, she slowly made her way to the door. When she opened it, she found herself faced to face with an oddly colored man that strangely reminded her of fish. "Uh…"
"Yamanaka Ino?" asked the man. She nodded. "I'm here to escort you back to Osaka. You should've gotten a notice in your room about the time and such of our trip."
She thought back on last night. It was really late and she hadn't really checked her room for anything before crashing onto her bed and sleeping. "Er…I thought Deidara was supposed to accompany me?"
"The task was left to me, I'm afraid. We'll have to be at the train station by seven-thirty, and it's already six-thirty."
"Sorry…I had no clue I was expected to be up this early…it'll just be a second."
"I'll be waiting outside."
She closed the door, feeling slightly disappointed. Who knew when she would ever see him again? Sighing, she began to go through her daily morning routine, though a little quicker than usual. After packing everything away, she tried pulling all of her bags outside. The blonde had a problem with over packing.
"Need some help there?" asked the man, leaning against the wall.
"I'd love some," replied Ino, struggling to get a Louis Vuitton suitcase out of the door.
The man chuckled, but came over to give her a hand. Soon, they had gotten all of the bags out. The elevator barely had any space left for the two when they put all of the bags in. Needless to say, the ride down was a long and cramped one. Ino kept glancing at the man next to her. He just looked really fishy…literally. And she wondered how he got to be that tinge of blue.
It was seven-fifteen by the time they left the hotel and went into a cab. The man had to pay the driver a little extra to get him to go faster. Something dawned upon Ino as she rode in the yellow cab. "You must be Kisame-san?"

The man looked surprised at the fact that she knew his name. "Yes," replied Kisame. "How did you know?"

"Deidara mentioned you a few times."

The taxi stopped in front of the station and Kisame and Ino hurried out, rushing to get to their platform. Kisame led them to Platform 10, hurrying through the doors with all of Ino's bags behind them. Scanning the aisles for their seats, Kisame muttered, "Twenty-four B, twenty-four B…" until finally he found her seat and motioned for Ino to sit as he tried to store as much of her luggage into the compartments as possible. Needless to say, the area soon became very cramped.

"I don't see why we couldn't get first class," whined Ino as she tried giving herself some leg room.

"We at Akatsuki didn't think you would respond so soon. It was short notice. Sasori had to pull a few…strings…in order to get us back today," replied Kisame in a matter-of-factly tone. He began walking off.

"Where are you going?" asked Ino.

"My seat's on the other side of the train. I'll be here as soon as possible when the train stops to help you with your items." Ino watched his retreating figure and sighed, staring out of the window now. No one was even sitting here.

Taking her iPod out of her bag, she clicked shuffle and stared out at the rolling scenery that was passing by.

"Will you turn off that fucking J-pop shit?" asked a not so amiable voice next to her. She turned around to see a man with shoulder length silver hair glaring at her. She hadn't even notice that he had sat down next to her.

"Excuse me?" No one offended her music.

He rolled his eyes. "Another blonde bimbo," he muttered under his breath. Around his neck hung a charm that was an upside down triangle in a circle, a symbol that seemed familiar to Ino, though she couldn't quite remember where she had seen it before.

"Ass hole," she replied. He was cute, but he wasn't that cute.

He glowered at her, but remained silent, putting his ear buds in and turning up his music. It was J-rock, the visual kei kind, and she despised it. How could anyone understand what they were saying? From the sounds of it, the song was by Gazette. Her recognition came from rooming with Tenten for a while, who was a big fan of theirs.

"How about you turn your crap off?" she said loudly.

"How about no." He turned it on louder. She hoped he went deaf.

"Bastard," she muttered under her breath.

"Can you move any of your shit?" The man kicked one of her Louis Vuitton suitcase.

"Hey, what the hell?!" She bet that it cost more than he could make in a year.

"Damn it, move your shit!" Needless to say, it was going to be a long ride.

"Stop number eighteen," said the voice of a woman through the speakers. "Passengers going to Osaka, please exit to your right."

Ino opened her eyes sleepily. She had slept throughout the rest of the trip. She looked to her right, but saw that the rude man had disappeared. She saw Kisame trying to push past a group of people as he made his way over to where she was sitting. Getting up, she grabbed as many of her bags as she could and waited for him to assist her.

"Had a good ride, I hope?" he asked when he finally arrived.

"Could've been better." He grabbed the rest of her stuff and they hurried through the door.

After taking the taxi to Ino's home, they dragged all of her stuff inside. The house was dark, but there was some light issuing from the living room. "Tenten?" called out Ino.

A brunette ran out of the living room. "Ino!" she chimed. "You're back early."

"Yeah…some things came up. I'll explain later. Oh, um, this is Kisame-sama. He works for a law firm that my father happens to be a client of. Kisame-sama, this is Tenten, my roommate."

The two both bowed, both murmuring "Hajimemashite".

"Kisame-sama, will you be lodging her tonight?" asked Ino.

"No, I have reservations at a hotel. Just tell me when you're ready to leave, and the Akatsuki will prepare for your trip back. Have a good rest." He left her bags there and left, closing the door softly behind him.

"You're going back?" asked Tenten.

"It's quite interesting really…"

Tenten gaped at Ino once she finished telling her story. "So you're actually going to do it? Seriously, Ino, I've never ever seen you go through more than two weeks without a guy. And this Deidara…he seems so hot. I don't know how you're going to survive…"

Ino threw a fluffy pillow at her. "Geezes, thanks for the moral support." The two were in Ino's very purple room. "Ugh, and worst of all, Sasuke's there…with another girl who's always clinging onto him…"

"I thought you were over him?"

"It's just one of those things, you know? Like…I can't help but have that funny feeling when I see him. And to be honest, I think he's grown a lot more handsome." She let out a long sigh. "And I have to put up with Sakura."

Tenten let out a laugh. "Ah, your best friend…"

"If I find out that she hooked up with Sasuke while I was gone, I don't know what I'd do. My father's such a bastard…may he rest in peace."

"Oi, Ino, you're thinking too much about this. Let's look at the bright side. Once the year is over, you'll have a cute guy, a restaurant, a huge salary, and a ginormous fortune. I wonder how Jiraiya will take this though…you're like his prodigy."

Ino chuckled. "More like Naruto, those two are more alike than they'd want to think."

"Ah, I'm going to miss you, Ino! It'll be so damn quiet without your big mouth."

Ino laughed. "Shut up, you talk almost as much as I do! I'll miss you as much, too. I'll call every week."

"I can't believe we ended up in the same place," said Tenten, reminiscently.

"Yeah…who would've thought," said Ino. It was strange how the two had never truly talked, even though they had both attended the same school from kindergarten until high school.

"Osaka's a big city too." They had met up with each other in a culinary institute, both taking an internship with Jiraiya.

"Maybe it was destiny."

"Maybe."

Jiraiya gave an outburst when Ino informed him of her departure. "Couldn't even bother to give me at least a month's notice?!"

She smiled guiltily. "Heh, well it was kind of abrupt…"

Jiraiya just sighed. He looked at her, "Good luck, kid. It's going to be hard replacing you, but all the same, I wish you luck."

"Thanks, Jiraiya-sama," replied Ino.

"Come visit some time."

"Of course."

She walked out of his office and into the kitchen. It was still prep time, so the kitchen wasn't bustling as much. Everyone stopped what they were doing when she walked. She figured Tenten had probably told them everything.

"So, Ino," began Naruto, "is it true?"

"That I'm leaving for Tokyo?"

"So it is true!" he exclaimed. "How could you be leaving us?!" He looked at her as if she was a traitor.

"Ah, Naruto…you need to see it as more of a…duty of piety," explained Ino. The curious looks of the others made her understand that they wanted to hear the story of the will reading from her. Taking a deep sigh, she began explaining her reasons for leaving (leaving out personal comments on some topics, like Sasuke, for example). These people had been her coworkers for years; they deserved a clear explanation for her departure.

"So this is good bye then?" asked Kaoru, one of the pastry chefs.

Ino smiled sadly. "Don't think of it as good bye. Think of it as… 'see you later'."

After a few minutes of 'good byes' and promises of keeping in touch (even the ice king Neji came to give her a, though succinct and curt, good bye).

The next day and a half she spent going around and telling everyone in town good bye and buying things she deemed necessary for her leaving. She didn't see Tenten go home until very late, since the restaurant was busy, and Ino didn't realize how much she would miss this city until the last night she spent there. She had already told Kisame when she would depart and he had gotten their train tickets, this time first class. It wasn't that much time to say goodbye to the city she loved, but she wanted to get settled in Tokyo as soon as possible.

She thought of how empty she would feel without the bustling of Osaka and all of the friends she had made. A year hadn't seem so long, but now that she thought about it, a year was 365 days, 21,900 minutes, 131,400 seconds…it had taken her forever to find the perfect place to start her life and now she was going back to square one…

She hoped that Tokyo would be better than when she had left it. Turning over, she closed her eyes and tried to get some sleep, remembering that she had to get up early tomorrow to pick up an important package and would depart for Tokyo later that afternoon.

A/N: Yes, yes, tedious I know, but I wrote this chapter half way through and too much time went by before I finished the other half, so I lost my whole insight, so just wait…it'll get better I swear! But yeah, hope you managed to enjoy it. Oh, and Happy Belated Thanksgiving!