-Morris Code-

"KYUUBI TALKING TO NARUTO AND HITOGOROSHI."

"Hitogoroshi talking to Kyuubi and Naruto."

"Naruto talking to Hitogoroshi and Kyuubi."

Naruto thinking to himself.

"Regular talking."

"Two or More (Hito, Kyu, and-or Naruto) talking at once"

:Akamaru, Kuromaru, or a dog/fox speaking:

A/N: It has been brought to my attention that I left out a seriously needed line on my plot web. I thank ArmorOfGeddon for pulling the idea out of hiding. I had forgotten about the whole "Hinata is a failure" thing I had more or less written in. I shall address this as best as I can in this chapter but if it is ill explained, let me know.

1234567890 Chapter 10 1234567890

Neji watched from his vantage point, Hinata dancing sleekly on the water surface around the shaky Inuzuka heir along with her adoptive brother. Every time she stepped, the water all but jumped under her foot so that her landing would be solid . . . or as solid as stepping on water allowed for. She was so pretty now, her eyes bright and warm, not the shadowed remnants of emotional and physical abuse at the hands of her father when she had not measured up to a Branch member's standards—to his standards, Neji scoffed. He was different than Hinata, had seen it from the first. She was too gentle and loving and self-sacrificing.

It wasn't much better now, either, for the newest heir. Thankfully for Hanabi, his father Hizashi was a much more loving man than Hiashi. And had a more refined self-preservation sense than the head of the family. But isn't that how it always went?

He sharp eyes took in the differences, the confidence and trilling wonderment of moving in sync with all that was around them. He had yet to activate his eyes for fear that the chakra usage would be noticed. Hiashi might scoff and say his first born was a stupid, insipid child without skill, but he was lying to himself and everyone else so that he wouldn't look the fool for casting out his heir. Too late for that but the Hyuuga Council was more than willing to stroke Hiashi's ego, to keep their unsuspecting pawn. Neji hoped he fell under the radar again like he always had, just above average in some areas but excelling in what a Hyuuga should. He had almost been labeled a prodigy. He sneered at the very word as he watched the blond finally figure out what he had missed within himself and start jumping and dancing with Hinata. Kiba gave them both disgruntled looks.

"Kiba, feel the water like it is a part of you. Like your blood, it flows and changes course within a boundary that cannot be crossed. Learn that it is not set but it is also bound to a certain way of being. Like a tree stands strong and tall and solid, water is swift and diligent and flowing." Hinata stood beside the canine nin and let him compose himself to try again. It didn't take long before success was his and the wild teen yipped in delight. Neji nodded his head and slipped from the tree, sliding into shadows to keep hidden even within the pale clothes he wore.

He never noticed the small bug that had attached itself to his hair or that his scent was everywhere so that even a water-logged Kiba could still smell it. Only time would tell with such an unknown.

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Hinata looked at her father with a suppressed grin and led the way to the office. Hokage-jii would be laughing once he knew what was going on, but Arashi had brought it upon himself. Really. A civilian could not cause that kind of damage. A normal ninja wouldn't be able to cause so much mischief with so little at his or her disposal. How demented was someone when a paperclip, two balloons, and a handful of rag weed meant that something Bad was going to happen?

"Hokage-sama, I caught this man vandalizing the . . . er," Hinata felt her cheeks heat. "Well, I think he can tell you." The smirk she was trying to hard to stop twitched her mouth and Sarutobi was on edge just thinking of what could be so devastating to someone with suicidal tendencies (nine-tenths of the entire civilian village and a few nin) that Hinata enjoyed the final outcome too much to use her game face. It meant that the attackers that went after Naruto had been for all intents and purposes humiliated in public view with no one being the wiser. Upon seeing who walked in, he groaned and let his arms fall to his desk as he tried to bury his face.

Hinata left with a stifled laugh that once the doors banged ominously closed burst into full-out guffaws. Sarutobi decided it was time for retirement as he gazed at Arashi. "What did you do this time?"

1234567890 A Few Days Later 1234567890

Kiba was sitting with Kurenai-sensei, Choji, and the pups. Apparently since Naruto just couldn't coordinate himself with the tiny fem pup, Ichigo had become part of his fighting team. Tsume didn't even shrug when she had heard. "I had thought something like this would happen, but hey, a pup picks the bonded whether they fight together or not. Never the other way around."

It seemed that Naruto had grown up too much to assimilate the tiny pup into his routine fighting. Berserk style didn't allow for many close combat allies since they could be hurt in the melee of the free for all. Ichigo understood and went along with it. She still kept her human and her fighting abilities. It seemed to be a win-win situation unless one witnessed the pup in depression. Naruto had talked to the pup when he first saw and she was slowly getting better now, still sad but rebounding with her bonded partner's love and acceptance.

A silent puff of air announced Sakura with her weighted clothes stopping near the table as she all but fell down. Choji caught her and with Kiba settled her on the bench. Kurenai looked at all of her students now and said in a slow, frosty voice, "Are we through with our tantrums today?"

Sakura gulped air as she nodded rapidly enough to make herself dizzy. Choji kept her upright by putting his hand on her shoulder. "Slow breaths, Haruno-san, before you pass out."

Once she could breath, Sakura thanked both boys softly to Kurenai's pleased watchfulness. "Now that we are all able to listen and breathe, I want to outline what we will be doing the week after next."

Kiba snorted. "I know what we're doing. Ma let me know that she was scheduled to take on a team a week to assess the teamwork. We're first and therefor on Monday, we're going to be under Ma's stern eye." He shrugged and leaned back on his arms as he stretched his spine. The weights Naruto had them all put on were killing his back. "I can already tell you we won't pass as we are right now. Not even close."

Kurenai stared at her pupil with a keen eye. "Oh? Is that so?"

Kiba gave a Gallic shrug. "I know Ma. This is pitiful to her. We're taught teamwork by the time we're six or seven so that our pups can integrate with us. So, no, not ready."

Kurenai had a gleam in her eye that bothered Kiba for some reason. When she smiled slowly, he felt his hackles rise. "You, Inuzuka Kiba, are now the commanding leader of this group. You will teach your team as if they were Inuzuka, making them work together. You have four days until then to get them within decent shape. Don't let them down."

As the woman sat back, Kiba felt his brain stick. Pulling his mind back on the tracks of actual thought he stood and gathered his teammates together. This was going to be hard but he'd do it.

:Nii-kun, we can do it!: said a small yip. He looked down to Ichigo and her twin tails as she grinned like a fox. Akamaru just grinned and yipped since he could no longer actually bark.

:And think, you'll be able to bring this mangled pack into a semblance of working order instead of chaos.:

Kiba nodded at the two and looked at his teammates. Sakura was already working her way up, but it was far from enough. She barely knew the academy style of taijutsu. She was still scrawny and under muscled. She dieted of all things. Still, she was smart. She knew things that others over-looked by skill of observation.

Choji was better off. Kiba knew for a fact that the tubby boy had muscles as hard as boulders beneath his round figure. He was able to pick up four and five hundred pound boulders with one arm. He ate bags of chips like some kids popped Pez candy. He was generally slow unless in smashing mode. He didn't push to succeed at anything.

He was going to be running them and himself ragged to get them ready. Maybe Naruto would have an idea?

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Sasuke felt his tenuous rage slipping out in a murderous glare as Ino tried to fling herself at him despite the fact that the wattage for each zap went up six percent every time she did so. Shino growled at the girl and swatted her away. They had been nice about it. They had complained. They had petitioned for another teammate that showed promise. They had almost gotten one but Ino didn't have another team to exchange with. It hadn't happened and the two boys were this close to just up and hiding at the Uchiha compound and working with Naruto when he was available. Was it sad that they had learned more from the tenacious blond in one day than they had from their instructor of nearly seven days?

Sasuke stepped to the side as a brown blur forced his way through, accidentally tackling Ino when the target had been himself. The Uchiha stared at Kiba who was clutching the wrong prize.

"Kiba, what are you doing here?" Shino asked with a bland voice. Sasuke managed to keep his face blank as he observed the stunned blond girl and the lupine ninja teen. If he didn't know better, Sasuke would say that Ino was going gooey over Kiba from the near orgasmic look on her face.

"Che," Kiba murmured as he helped Ino to her feet with a wolfish grin. "Sorry, milady. I was aiming a little more to the right but I seemed to have missed my intended target," he purred while flashing a grin that made Sasuke shiver seeing the evil intent behind it. Never had the other two males heard such eloquence from the feral nin teen and their jaws threatened to drop to their knees. With a bow and a kiss to her hand, Kiba turned and grabbed Sasuke and Shino by their shoulders as he steered them from the stunned blond. "Good day, beautiful-hime. May our paths cross again."

Sasuke felt the stare for a long time, his neck crawling though it seemed the majority of the staring was not at himself but Kiba. He was silently rejoicing that he had one less fanatical fangirl to contend with. Out of the dozens, only Ino and Sakura seemed to always find him, track him down. If it weren't for the fact that he knew they weren't high ranked kunoichi, he would have called them Hunter nin. Those two were just that scary sometimes.

Looking over at the two brunettes, Sasuke gave the eye to Kiba just as Shino was. "So, Kiba, what was that back there?"

Shino nodded that he too wanted to know, his eyes peeking over the rims of his sunglasses. " . . . Hai, Kiba-san. You are not usually so . . . eloquent."

Kiba seemed to blush. "Ah . . ." he scratched his chin as he looked anywhere but at his friends. "What can I say, I have a thing for blonds. Naruto is hot, too, but he's as strait as a ruler and will kick my ass for making moves on him." He shrugged.

Shino snorted and walked on, whistling merrily to the amazement and slight fear of his companions. It would be said that strange chills wracked the spines of many as he walked by.

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Naruto groaned as he lay on the ground beside Shikamaru. What a sucky way to loose a match! Well, battle of the minds, anyway. Hinata was rolling around cackling like a mad hen, her hair becoming more gray and beige with dust and dirt rather than its usually stunning midnight blue. Asuma sat smoking like a train and awaiting his turn to play the young genius Nara.

"I believe it is your turn, Asuma-sensei."

Hinata snickered some more as Naruto plodded off to the side and fell with a fake groan of pain to the ground. Asuma chuckled at them and reset the board as Shikamaru snorted at the siblings. "Troublesome."

Forty minutes later and Asuma threw his hands up in defeat even as he stared at the board in frustration and mild confusion. "I'll be damned! Beat, and just like that!" The older man snapped his fingers. Naruto snorted at the man and chuckled.

"Poor, sensei," he mocked with a sly grin. Hinata smacked his arm and rolled her eyes. Why did her brother have to be such a dork?

"NARUTO-NII-SAN! I FOUND YOU!"

Naruto perked up like a hound on the trail, his face bleaching out into white as he scrambled to his feet and rocketed off . . . but not fast enough. A rocket of red and blue plowed into his side and laid him out flat, Hinata trying so hard not to start laughing in his face. She knew this would happen eventually, but she hadn't imagined that the girl would find them on a day she should be in school.

"S-s-suki! What are you doing here?" Naruto stuttered out as he wheezed for breath. "Shouldn't you be at the school?"

The red clad, blue haired, blue eyed kunoichi in training pouted at the blond. "Natsuna-sensei had to leave early today. She went into labor right in the class and Iruka-sensei from down the hall had to escort her to the infirmary. And it sucks, nii-san. I turn thirteen in two months and I'm still in the little kids' classes. I want to be on a team with you and Nata-nee-chan. It's not fair!"

Naruto laughed outright and hugged one of his favorite girls to his side. "Silly girl, you failed the written exam on purpose one year, if I need remind you, and you have a late birthday which put you a class below me and Hinata." He then tapped her on the nose making her eyes cross cutely.

"Yeah, whatever, squirt. Come by the Uchiha compound if you're looking for Kagura. She's almost-but-not-yet-dating the Uchiha Chicken-Butt of Emo Doom. I've had to pry her off with a crowbar a time or two," Hinata said in a sly tone that let everyone know something was going through her mind and it was devious and may hap evil. Shikamaru shivered when an even more fierce and terrifying look graced the younger kunoichi Naruto had called Suki.

"Oh, well, if that is the case . . ." her face morphed into a gleeful grin. "I have just the thing for little Kura-chan! Come Come Paradise Tatics and Icha Icha Love Tatics!" A little orange book made itself known as Suki fished it from her top, exposing to all and sundry that she was packing for a twelve-almost-thirteen year old and none of it was stuffed socks or tissue paper. And that she didn't wear a bra. "And, I can lend her the Icha Icha-Come Come Practical Guide Book if she needs it. I mean, how many virgins have access to my wonderful expertise and stash?"

Naruto blustered before just blinking and staring at Suki. "But aren't you a virgin too?"

"Not for lack of trying, I dare say. Alas, I'll be at least fifteen before I can do the nasty with anyone. Mom made me promise, as did Auntie." Suki's sigh seemed heartfelt before she perked up and strutted over to Shikamaru's lap to plop herself down. "But, hey handsome, if ya want, I'll make you my first. Of course, I can do a whole lot of other things until then. What do ya say, sugar?"

Suki's hand was caressing Shika's face making the teen blush even as his face remained in it's stoic passivity. When he cleared his throat, he looked at anyone but the girl perched on his lap. "As . . . kind and generous . . . as that offer sounds, I am currently interested in someone else at this time." His voice sounded kind of strangled but that might be because Suki had put his face in her breasts and was petting him like a prized pet.

The bluette pouted with large navy blue eyes glistening hauntingly in a brown sugar face. "Oh, pooh. And you are so cute. Ah. Oh well," she stood and straightened her shorter-then-normal skirt to it's tiny length against the top of her thighs. "I'll find me a good looking man to molest for a while. After I give Kura-chan some lesson books, of course."

Just before she left, Kiba came running up to the team, stopping dead when the little she-devil known as Suki jumped him, pressing her firm breasts into his arm and chest as she straddled his waist. "My, my, Naruto-nii. What have you been up to? Such deliciously sexy men in your little family and not a one for me?" she pouted with a manic gleam in her eyes.

Naruto spluttered and colored before giving up and pushing Hinata over to deal with the girl. "Suki, hunny, as much as I love you, little sister, you are going to kill poor Naruto with all this. He just can't stand the thought of us girls being one day grown women with grown desires in our not-so-distant future." The darker bluette deftly ignored that her blond brother was choking. "And Tou-san is adjusting poorly as well. We may have to resort to page 63 in the Icha-Come practical to get the ball rolling."

Suki chuckled. It was the most evil sound any on the boys had ever heard in their – for all but one – short lives. Even Asuma made the attempt to "become part of Gaea" as he all but sank into the wood of his bench seat. Naruto held back a chuckle. It had been a while since he'd seen Suki, and it was always a shock, but he'd gotten used to the killer intent-that-wasn't since the intentions behind it seemed so much worse than death. Naruto had always thought she would be an excellent interrogations expert like Ibiki or Anko.

"Suki," he soothed to his friend and little sister in all but blood. The bluette turned to him with a question on her face. "Most of my family is like your family. You get my meaning?"

Her sprite face lit up and she smiled softly at them all, including Kiba who she was still sitting on. "Ah. I see, nii-chan. But, the old man . . ."

Naruto shook his head. "Nothing you can do for it, Suki. It's been left too long. Nothing good will come of messing with him now."

She nodded, moved off Kiba—flashing the stunned male with a devious smirk—and trotted over for a hug. "Au revoir, mon frere."

With a quick look over her shoulder and a fluttery finger wave for Shika and Kiba, she skipped off, her healthy assets bouncing and drawing attention from every male within sighting distance. Naruto had never heard the streets so full of anguished screams before. He was kinda figuring he might go asexual, too. Kunoichi . . . He shivered and looked back at his bond brother.

Kiba, too, watched her go, his eyes wide. "Is she related to Kagura-chan?" At the sage nod of the bewhiskered blond, the brunette blinked twice, shook his head, then shook all over as if trying to rid himself of water. "I thought Kagura-chan was unique in her oddness. I now find that her . . ."

"Older cousin," Hinata supplied as she dusted off everything, even her hair, when she took a second to notice the state of her clothes.

"Right. Cousin," he stated calmly until he reached his feet, at which point he thrust his finger in Naruto's face as the lupine teen snarled. "I find that her cousin is just as insane and vicious as the other, only this one in a pure hentai! And after any male willing to let her get away with murder! They should all be quarantined for the good of society!"

Naruto was truly lost. "HUH?"

Kiba spluttered, foaming at the mouth even as Ichigo and Akamaru laughed. :Kura-nee played a trick on Kiba-baka-nii,: Ichigo yipped merrily. Akamaru was laughing too hard to say anything himself as he rolled around. :Apparently, Kura-nee has been gossiping with Yamanaka-san and helping the pretty blond fem set up a fanclub.:

Naruto felt his mouth twitching. Hinata choked and went red in the face. They looked at each other, Kiba, the puppies, and back before exploding. Even Shikamaru hid a devious smirk by putting his face in his arms as if uninterested. Outside of Naruto, the Inuzukas, and other similarly bound companions, no one heard the words within the sounds of the beasts. He'd have to test this tonight with the others and then caution them.

Kiba, seeming to finally remember why he had come, looked at Naruto with a worried but hopeful grin. "And I will apologize about all of that if you can tell me how to make my team presentable to Kaa-san."

Naruto blinked at the turn-about. Kiba was acting so odd all of a sudden . . . He needed to talk to Tsume-san and see if it was an Inuzuka thing. "Um, well," he pondered, the classical thinking pose coming naturally as he rubbed his chin. Then a grin of unholy terror split his face in half showing all those elongated and pointy teeth of his. "Bring them by the compound tomorrow. I'll get you three started at six that morning, so eat light but make sure you're full. I got just the thing and I can't have you all stopping halfway through, can I?"

Kiba gulped and saw his entire life flash before his eyes. He was going to regret this to the nth degree, he just knew he was.

1234567890 To Be Continued 1234567890

A/N#2: And we have SUKI, our little hentai of feminine terror! She will now hit on anything male and breathing. Age has nothing to do with it. All while trying to give sexual advice. And, unfortunately, I will have her paired (a background pairing, but still) with one of the guys. Who? You're not allowed to know yet or the entire plot/idea/bunny would be killed horribly and it's going to be funny when it happens. I hope.

Sorry I've been update Tipping the Scales more that this one, but I got stuck and had to introduce Suki a whole two chapters early due to the fact that I had to trash half the chapter and that didn't leave a good length to post at all. This is why I hate plot holes. Things tend to fall in them and are never seen again. And to let a few know, this will have SLASH elements, though far from the main pairings.

INFORMATION ON OFC:

Tamashii Suki – cousin to Kagura and about 2 ½ years older than the eleven year old making her 12-13. Again of the Tamashii Clan, she'll be a more mature (if somewhat perverted) version of Kagura. She'll be brown sugar skin toned, navy blue eyes, riveting royal blue hair. Wears lots of red . . . And reads Icha Icha and Come Come. (They are the same, I know, but for the story they are two separate series)