Ladies, Gentlemen, and Loyal readers! I present to you, the first true update in 3 years! Please read and review this story, and if anyone wants to know why this story took me 3 years to update, please send me a PM, and I will answer it in a timely manner.
Through over 250,000 Naruto stories, the disclaimer still stays the same: I only own this story, not Naruto.
After getting Lee to buy well over a thousand flowers to try to impress Sakura, Ino let her mother take over the shop and decided to try to find anyone that could possibly give her the answers she was looking for.
"Someone has to know what's been going on around here," she thought as she slowly walked around on the streets. "First Neji comes in with his… hot… self, then Naruto and his… equally Hot… Self comes in after him. Both of those guys, Naruto especially, wouldn't be seen there. But at least it was a good sight to see…" She started smiling and walking, not paying attention to what she was doing until she bumped into someone shorter than her. "Oh, excuse me. I wasn't paying much attention, I'm sorry." She looked down to see Moegi looking up at her.
"It's ok," said Moegi. "I kinda wasn't paying attention myself."
"Moegi, would you happen to know anything that's going on with Naruto? " Ino mentally slapped herself in the forehead. She knew that Moegi was still part of Konohamaru's team, and had trained under Naruto in the past, but she didn't know if they would happen to be in the know of the goings on with their former trainer.
"Not really much, except I heard something from Konohamaru about Hanabi saying she was going to make a new kind of ramen and try to get Naruto to try it."
"That seems pretty out there. Why would Hanabi try to make ramen? Having Naruto taste it is reasonable, but…" Something clicked in Ino's head before she remembered something Neji said in the shop earlier.
"The reason why I'm here…" Neji said through clenched teeth at Naruto, "Is to buy flowers for TenTen. Now that I'm not assuming my guaranteed freedom from this Caged Bird seal I wear, I have to win back her heart. You had to go and get yourself married off to the other head of the Main Family!" Her mind returned to the real world.
"Thanks for letting me know that. I've got some errands I've got to take care of. See you around." She jumped to a rooftop before going towards Team Gai's training grounds. "I heard a loose rumor a few days ago from someone that Hanabi had a little crush on Naruto, but I just cast it aside because teens develop crushes on older people, especially someone that their siblings like just to infuriate them. But when Neji said something about marriage and his freedom being taken, he must've been talking about something relating to that." She pushed more chakra into her feet and sped off to the grounds. When she finally approached the grounds, she saw many pieces of splintered wood littering the grounds, and a panting Neji in the middle of it all.
"Ino, you're the last person I expected to see here today," said Neji.
"And you expected to see Naruto more than me?"
"I did." He turned to her, deactivating his Byakugan and looking in her eyes. "Had he shown up here, I would've put him in the hospital in a near death state." He briefly frowned before returning to a semi-stoic facial expression. "I apologize for what happened earlier today at your shop. Hiashi-sama will pay for the repairs needed to it."
"It's ok. The 'Power of Youth' will take care of all damages over time." She couldn't help but smile when she said that.
"Lee is still trying to impress Sakura. Idiot."
"I don't think he's an idiot for that. It's really romantic that he's trying so hard. After all, he bought about 1000 flowers. We had to send a message to other florists to import more varieties to us."
"I know you didn't just come here for idle chit-chat, because I'm not the type for that. What do you really want?" Ino's smile left her, and she got into a serious mood.
"What's going on between you and Naruto?"
"It is nothing that concerns you. It is Hyuuga family business, and shall be made known when the time is right."
"Busting up my shop, yelling, and scaring my customers makes it a concern for me!" She raised her voice a bit, but she quickly lowered it when she remembered who she was talking to. "Naruto and the Hyuuga family are involved with this, so that must mean Hinata finally confessed her feelings to him. Am I right?"
"I only wish you were right." Her jaw lowered in disbelief. "But as I said, you'll find out when the time comes for the public to know." He turned his back to her before walking away from her.
"Do you want TenTen back?" The words came out as a whisper, but from his slight reactions, Ino could tell that Neji heard her loud and clear. "If you really want her back, I can help you if-"
"I don't need your help! I can get her back myself." He took a deep breath before taking a step away from her. "And I don't need you trying to blackmail me for the answers you're wanting. Be patient. Haven't you ever heard someone speak those words to you? The best information cannot be gathered by hastily asking questions." He took a couple more steps away from her. "Besides, even I don't know what's going on anymore. The events of the past couple days are too confusing to sort through at the moment. Goodbye, Ino." He walked away from her, a little too exhausted physically and mentally to pump chakra into his feet and run away.
"Naruto, you messed up!" Tsunade roared in outrage as Naruto sat still in his seat. He wished to be anywhere but in front of her facing her wrath, even near the root of his troubles, Hanabi. "You wanted to become Hokage all this time, yet you didn't bother thinking about studying the clan laws didn't you?" She sighed as Naruto sighed.
"No, I didn't," he said with his head hanging down to the floor. "I was gonna wait on that for a while, wait until I became the Hokage and settled into the position for a few days before actually looking through them."
"Looking through them, not studying them. Typical knuckleheaded ninja." Tsunade shifted through the paperwork that was neatly sorted on her desk, thankful that Shizune organized all the paperwork last night when Jiraiya took her on an impromptu date to once again try to win her over. "Hiashi sent me the entire details about your marriage to his daughters, along with the laws and sections where said bylaws about marrying both heirs are detailed. It's ironclad. You're not breaking this unless one of them dies." She looked up to Naruto with a smile. "Look up here boy!" Naruto looked into her amber eyes and felt a little disturbed by her smile. "You should really consider yourself lucky. Any guy would kill to be in your position, having 2 beautiful women to pamper him and cater to your wants and needs. Besides, with your shadow clones, you could-"
"Stop!" He held his hands up in front of him. "The sake must've been great for you to get those thoughts flowing."
"Nah, not the sake. Just… A preview of the new Icha Icha Frenzy that Jiraiya showed me last night. It's got a likeness of you featured as the protagonist. It's pretty ironic that the next Icha Icha entry has your likeness in it, and yet just like him, you have 2 girls, sisters at that, wanting to marry you. Did you happen to talk to him about what's been going on?"
"No, not yet. He's had that book finished for the past couple months, so there's no way that he's made this based off of my life. And he was gone for the past month promoting it and doing marketing research, the only really serious 'research' he'll ever do in his life. He goes around to different publishing companies seeing who would like to publish and get it spread through the countries, and he asks his 'loyal' smut readers/fans what they would like to see in the next installment, or what their opinions of the past volumes are."
"I guess he does do a lot more than just peek in the bathhouses."
"Sure does. He constantly stays busy with this work." The sound of papers rustling filled the room in place of the minute of silence.
"So, who do you really have feelings for, and why?" Naruto was surprised to hear her ask him that question.
"Truth be told… I just started noticing Hinata lingering somewhere around me, like a stalker or something. I didn't pay her any mind, and thought she was just passing by me on random occasions. Sakura told me something about Hinata liking me, and didn't know the way to show me. Then 2 days later, I come home from a night at Ichiraku's, go inside my apartment, and find someone that smelled like Hinata, lavender and vanilla, laying in my bed. I thought she was making a very bold move in doing that. I knew someone had been following me, but they didn't seem threatening in any way. After that, she motioned for me to come into my bed, possibly to prove her love or like for me. It took me by surprise when she told me that she loved me. Come to find out the next morning that it was Hanabi." He sighed and slapped his left hand against his forehead. "I wanted to give Hinata a chance, but I screwed things up so horribly with us that when this marriage goes through, I doubt that she'll even speak to me, or look at me for screwing up so badly. I just wish I had a better way to tell her that I was sorry for all of this mess happening to us." Tsunade stood up and walked to a closet within her office.
"Your wish has been granted, young master." She opened the closet door, and an unconscious body with long midnight blue hair fell to the floor, a deep red blush covering her facial features. She chuckled nervously. "It wasn't supposed to happen like that…"
"Hinata!" Naruto looked down at her unconscious body as he quickly moved from his chair to sitting her upper body on one of his knees.
Gasp! Miss Hinata in the closet? Sneaky!
Ok, the first time I posted this chapter, it was right before my laptop's OS crashed, which meant there was an error that I couldn't fix for a while. Personally, I feel that there's always some stuff I can do better on, or correct within stories, so I usually try to let them go quickly before that happens. Anyway, while worrying about getting it corrected, I got a review wondering if I was gonna raise the rating to M. To anyone else that was wondering, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not raising the rating. That's for future stories, but this rating will stay T because I don't want to write lemons in any Writer's Block stories.
If you like what you read, please leave me a review!