Hey, look another update, fancy that.

It's been two weeks (Which is a long time for me). Guess how many reviews I've had for the last two chapters?

None, zero, zilch, nada, nil, null, naught.

Do you, my readers, not like this story? I can end it here if you so wish.

I don't write for reviews, I really like them but I don't depend on them, hence the update now. I just will take my own sweet time updating.

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Max was back to staring at the ceiling in her room, she was considering redecorating, the white was boring and reminded her of many hospital stays. She couldn't help but wonder if she would spend that much more time in her room, she may not leave the village but she still would be taking missions.

She felt something warm stir besides her as she almost fell off her bed, she would defiantly like a bigger bed, and an even bigger duvet, Itachi liked to hog it.

It had been six days since the talent show. Max was still getting used to actually having a relationship, something's were easy to get adapt to like sharing a bed, on countless missions up north they had shared to keep warm. The spontaneous hug and physical affection still made her jump though. Laura was the only one who really knew why. It wasn't that Max had ever been physically abused or anything, almost the opposite, her parents had rarely shown her affection causing her to be socially awkward. She had mostly overcome it but relationships were still strange to her.

A glance at her alarm clock showed it was just past seven in the morning, Tsunade had asked them both to attend the next council meeting which was in about three hours. Max had no clue why, but had a feeling both Itachi and Tsunade knew. She didn't want to attend, it would only be boring but she couldn't help but be curious as to why they wanted her to come along.

She supposed she should get up, she wanted to be fully awake so she didn't do something stupid. She rolled off the bed, twisting so she landed on her feet. She didn't bother looking through her wardrobe, it was empty. Instead she took a scroll from one of her hidden drawers and unsealed some clothes and headed to the bathroom. She didn't think she'd make the right impression turning up in her pyjamas. It would just make her look lazy.

Looking at the time she remembered she was meeting with Naruto for breakfast. She was planning to spend time with Naruto to make up for her absence, if it hadn't been for the council meeting she would have offered to teach him a new technique.

After the breakfast, at that ramen place naturally, Naruto headed off to meet with team 7.5. Apparently Tsunade had mentioned the possibility of a decent mission if they trained hard. At least Tsunade knew how to push some people buttons.

Max headed off to the council chambers, technically as an adopted Hakie, and the older of the two, she was supposed to attend every meeting but because she was an active ninja she got out of it. Laura sometimes went in her stead but normally ended up doing some crosswords during it. Neither girl was interested in politics, nor did they have any desire to screw up something that they wouldn't be able to fix easily. She took her seat around the table, it was horse shoe shaped, Tsunade would be sitting at the peak of the curve, right in the middle. Max was sat at one of the ends, near enough to the door, but not in the line of fire should someone burst in. She noticed Itachi sitting neared to the middle, his clan was more renowned that hers. He also attended very little.

"All rise for the Fifth Hokage of Konoha." Everyone respectfully stood until Tsunade motioned for them to sit.

"First order of business, the festival. I like to think of it as a success. If anyone can think of a way it can be improved then please submit it in writing by the end of the week." Max started to zone out, the meeting continued in the same manner until something made Max focus.

"…And finally, the Uchiha situation. As I'm sure you are all aware of the happenings in the talent show leading to a change in this situation. Does anyone have concerns about this change?" Max scanned the room for changes in peoples expressions while she mulled over what she had just heard, trying to figure out what exactly was meant by that. Itachi was looking directly at her studying her reaction.

"I have a concern." Heads turned to the speaker. Danzo stood up to face the rest of the council. "While Hakie has shown that she is fully capable as a Kunoichi, I don't see her fit to raise future shinobi. She disappeared with no warning, what if she was to do that and leave the child?"

"Wait a second, hold the phone here. Can someone please tell me what's going on?" Max asked, her voice sounded dangerous to the occupants of the room. The implications of Danzo's words were not good to Max.

"I forgot you were unaware of this situation," Tsunade sighed.

"That is a load of bull crap, but go ahead and explain"

"When ever a clan such as the Uchiha's get dramatically reduced to less than five males, an act comes into play. To ensure strong offspring any males potential wife needs to be checked to see if she is viable"

"And if she isn't?"

"Then the union is discouraged and the male is to take on at least one surrogate to continue the clans line. This process took place when Itachi and Shiba were together and next year it will take place for Sasuke." Tsunade finished

"This is stupid, feel free to finish though, I'd love to know what you think of me. My ego could do with a boost" Max said leaning back in her chair.

"Then as I was saying-" Danzo said, he opened his mouth to continue but was cut off.

"No one cares about you," Tsunade snapped. She was not going to have all of her hard work undone, she was tempted to take Max up on her offer if it wasn't for the fact no murder could be left free of evidence. If they proved it was her then the only penalty would be death.

She of course didn't know about Max's death note. The only person other than Max who did know she had it was on a different galaxy. Laura though Max had gotten rid of it after the case had been resolved.

The meeting drew to a close, the final verdict being that Max was indeed a suitable match for Itachi. Tsunade took a moment to image how Max would have reacted if she hadn't. After a late lunch she called Max into her office.

"Well Max, now that you're going to be back for a while I need to give you something to keep you occupied," Tsunade informed her. Max shrugged as she slouched in her chair, she was tired even though it was four in the afternoon. "I have a mission lined up for team seven, except Sai and Kakashi. I'm sure you can take his place, let you reconnect with your old team, you'll be the team leader when you catch up"

"I do have a lot of reconnecting to do"

"You might want to head off then, they left this morning for the Land of Tea," Tsunade said with a grin. Max glared at her before disappearing. She could afford enough time to drop by Laura's work and tell her she was going. Itachi had been sent on a mission earlier that day so he wasn't around to tell.

Max knew that there was a significantly lower chance of being paired up with him for missions, people in a relationship were rarely put together in case it endangered the mission.

She set off in the vague direction of Land of Tea, she was tempted to apperate but she didn't want to turn up before the rest of the team, and she didn't want to turn up out of nowhere. Instead she was going ridiculously fast, she was glad the path hadn't changed much even with her reflexes she would be hard pressed to dodge something.

She saw a flash of someone vaguely familiar. She almost stopped to go check but remembered she couldn't get much further behind. The person had looked a bit like Itachi, and a similar chakra ID. But that was impossible, Itachi was in Grass country, the opposite direction to Tea.

She was over half way there when she stopped for a break, she didn't want to have accidently overtaken them so she headed to a restaurant nearby.

"Are you looking for the three boys who passed through about half an hour ago?" the owner of the restaurant asked.

"Uh, no, only two, blond and hyper, and the other, dark haired and quiet"

"Yes, they were two of the boys"

"Thanks." Max was gone before the woman could form a word. Half an hour, that meant she would arrive just after them if she kept up this pace without getting distracted. She wondered it the two actually knew that she was on there team, she wouldn't put it past Tsunade to just tell them 'oh you have a third member who will join you there'. In fact that would be just like Tsunade.

-

Speaking of the Hokage, Tsunade was sat at her desk looking through her paper work. She had managed to time Max's mission to start before Itachi returned from his short one. He had been sent off straight after the council meeting. She had an important mission that Max could not find out about. She had told Max a small lie so she wouldn't be tempted to wait for him.

-

Max couldn't remember the last time she had been to the Land of Tea, she wondered if the two groups were still fighting. The last time she had been there she had walked into a fight on no less than four separate occasions. Then there were the ones she had caused by one of the groups annoying her.

She arrived at her client's house in time to see Naruto and Sasuke open the door to the house. She sped up and slung an arm around their necks and walked in with them. The had to react in such a way that they didn't seem surprised in front of the client.

"Fancy seeing you guys here," she smirked, she nodded her greeting at the client. She recognised him but couldn't remember the name, all she knew was he was of the Wasabi clan. She dealt with numerous clients, she couldn't remember all of them by name.

"Ah, you three must be Konoha ninjas, welcome. How much do you know about this mission?" Max realised then she hadn't actually been told what the mission was, just where to go. She needed to stop doing that, it was dangerous. The man started to explain the mission to the trio. They would be protecting the clan's runner for this scorched fire race thing. The winner of the race would gain power for the clan they ran for. Max thought it was stupid, and from the expressions of the two boys they agreed.

The three of them turned as the door was slid open, and all three of them recognised the newcomer.

"You!" Naruto growled. Max grabbed the back of Naruto's collar to stop him from jumping on the newcomer before taking a proper look at him.

"Idate?" she asked, she was almost certain it was him, the goofy kid on the genin team she had hired that one time to clean her apartment before Laura got back from a long day at work. The only reason she remembered him was he almost was killed by one of her traps that she had forgotten to disable.

"Max Hakie? Why's a Sannin been assigned this mission?"

"Well it's a funny story, but it's one you don't need to know." If he pressed the issue she would ask why he was here and not with his team. She was respecting his privacy, he should return the favour. Besides, chances were she'd find out when she got back.

"You two know each other?" Naruto asked looking between the two.

"That's also a funny story but I'm not giving you blackmail," Max told him quietly, Laura was firm with the whole: 'if they made the mess, they clear it up' issue. Genin had better things to do than clear up their mess. Actually, Max wondered if that damn cat was still around, she had spent her time chasing it both times as a genin, so it was possible it was still around.

"The race starts tomorrow at noon, you may wander around for the remainder of the day, Idate can show you around." The team bowed and left the room followed by Idate who looked like her would rather be anywhere else.

"Is there anywhere you would like to go?" Idate ground out. The two other boys shook their heads.

"Is there enough time to walk the path you wish to take for this race?" Max asked, she would prefer to see the terrain and assess any natural threats or places they could easily be ambushed. Idate looked a bit shocked at her wording. How did she know he may not take the same path as his opponent?

"No, I could show it to you on a map though, both routes. It all depends on the winds," Idate offered.

"Better than nothing I suppose" Max grumbled, she hated not being prepared fro something. She subtly created some shadow clones, once she found out the route she would send them of to check it out. It wouldn't be as good as actually going herself though, clones didn't have intuition or gut feelings.

Once they were done, she set a clone to tail Idate as he went about his own business. She set Sasuke and Naruto to look around the district, see if they could find out if there were any plans to prevent Idate from finishing the race. She herself sat down and began to medicate to gain finer control on the clones she had set out for exploring the routes. She wanted to check both out just in case.

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