OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Nekomi looked around her. They were getting ready to Inabikari to Waterfall, where they would be leaving from for the exam and where they would also get their papers and headbands.
She was coming as a representative of waterfall. There were three jonins and their teams.
The first team was Naruto, Gaara and Haku under Zabuza. The second team was Tora, Haru and Takeo under Ishigo and the third team was Itachi, Miwa and Taro under Shina. All of them wore genjutsu necklaces to disguise their true appearances. "Ready?"
She saw many excited faces in the crowd. Even Naruto had become excited. They wanted to test their skill against the biggest and supposed best of the five nations. Most of the village had come up top to see them off. Nekomi looked at Amaya "Amaya, I leave you in charge of the village and the council while I am gone. I trust you will do just as fine a job."
"Hai, Bankage-sama."
They formed a circle and inabikari'd.
They showed up in the circle just outside of Waterfall and they walked up to the gates.
"Stop. Who goes there?"
Nekomi slipped out her necklace and waved it about for a second. The others did too.
The guard recognized them at once "Oh! It is you! I will go let him know you are coming." He left to let the other guard take over. They waited at the gates until the guard came back and then they left with him.
Their leader called himself a kage, though he wouldn't be recognized as one because he wasn't one of the great nations. He said "Welcome, I expected you. These are the people who you will bring with you?"
"Hai. Will you add teams of your own?"
He shook his head "Iie, I will not send my own teams this time. It would look suspicious for a small country such as mine to have so many teams competing."
"Thank you for your cooperation."
He smiled "You, your land, and people have helped mine out a great deal. I could do no less." He handed over the papers. "It would be appropriate to leave tomorrow if you are travelling at normal ninja speed."
Nekomi nodded "We will."
"You also have the use of the Suzukage hot springs and inn for the night."
"Arigatou gozaimasu." He handed them their papers and slips of paper with his signature for the use of the inn/hot springs.
Shina said "Oh, a hot springs! I haven't been to one of those in forever!"
Nekomi smiled "It will be nice."
Ishigo said "Why can't we just teleport to Konoha already?"
Nekomi said "Because it would attract attention, Ishigo-kun and we're trying to avoid that, besides, if I remember correctly, the hot springs here has two seperate pools and a mixed one."
Ishigo said "Are you going to be in it?"
Nekomi smiled "Nope, I'm going to be in the girls' bath, with Shina, Miwa and Haku, but I'm sure you'll have some admirers in the mixed bath. It's a popular hangout, just make sure you don't give away more than your name." She smiled.
"Hai." Nekomi could see by the look on his face that he was already thinking about it. She thought 'He deserves to find a girlfriend. I had thought he was hitting it off with Saki, but they seemed to have fallen out again.' She looked at Zabuza.
Zabuza said "I'll keep an eye on the boys, make sure that they don't show off." They made it to the inn and gave them their tickets and went to the seperate baths.
Haku said "This is really nice, Kaasan."
Nekomi said "I think so too." She lay back in the pool. She and the other girls had on two pieces provided by the inn because it was a mixed bathing hot spring. She had on a black two piece, Miwa had on a pink, Shina had on a blue and Haku had on a purple.
In the mixed bath, Zabuza kept an eye on Ishigo. Zabuza had black trunks on and Ishigo had on white. The other boys were over in the mens' bath, watched over by Itachi. Itachi had purple trunks on and Naruto had on orange and Gaara red.
Itachi said "If you do another cannon ball, I'm coming after you, Takeo."
Takeo stuck out his tongue. Itachi stressmarked. 'Zabuza owes me.'
In the mixed bath...a woman walked over to Zabuza "Hello. I don't believe I've seen you before."
Zabuza looked at the woman, nice shape, pretty, and if Nekomi saw him talking to her, very dangerous "Hey, I'm married, why don't you talk to this guy here. He's single." He pushed Ishigo forward.
The woman pouted. Zabuza whispered something in her ear and her eyes got hearts in them, she looked at Ishigo and giggled then ran back over to her friends.
Ishigo frowned "What did you tell them?"
Zabuza said "Nothing. Much. You better watch out though. Don't let them sneak up behind you." He laughed and went a little ways away to soak by himself.
Three girls advanced upon Ishigo.
Ishigo said "Um, hello."
The redhead said "Oh! Are you really a swordsman? We love swordsmen!"
The blonde said "Because swordsmen have the biggest swords!" She giggled.
Ishigo blushed red and wondered if it showed through the genjutsu. He guessed it did when they giggled again.
"He's shy."
The blonde said "We can help you with that."
Ishigo turned to look at Zabuza "Zabuza..."
Zabuza laughed "You're on your own, man."
When Ishigo looked again, Zabuza was gone.
In the women's bath...
Nekomi looked up as a woman with medium length black pigtails and brown eyes come into the bath. When the woman returned her gaze, she mouth 'Zabuza?'
He mouthed 'Here.'
Nekomi smiled and shook her head as he came to join them. She said "So what brings you here from mixed bathing?"
Zabuza said "I helped Ishigo get some attention from the female population. I decided to leave him, don't want to get in the way, me being a married ma..woman and all." He looked around.
Nekomi snorted "How'd you change it anyway?"
"I picked that up a couple of years ago."
Nekomi was referring to his changing the appearance given by the genjutsu necklace. "It's amazing that you did it without causing it to become visible."
Zabuza said "Practice."
Haku asked "Is that you, tou..."
Zabuza covered her mouth. "Yes, it's me, Haku. Shh."
Nekomi said "Now, let's call for some drinks. Attendant!" A woman came in.
"Hai?"
Nekomi said "Some drinks please."
"What kind?"
Zabuza said "Sake."
Nekomi said "No sake."
"Why? We can sleep it off before we go tomorrow."
Nekomi frowned. The woman said "We serve the best sake in these parts." Nekomi gave in "Alright, Sake for the three of us and.."
Miwa said "I can handle it."
Haku said "Me too." Nekomi regretted making Haku's henge older looking. She thought she'd have a lot of complaining to hear and healing to do in the morning, but it would be a good way for them to learn if they had a tolerance for alchohol or not. She said "Alright. Sake for all of us." The woman nodded and left.
In the men's bath...
A woman with drinks also came about, with a blush. She didn't know why they had sent her to serve drinks to the men too. Well at least they were all in trunks. She kept her head down.
"Miss."
She looked up and saw a handsome man with black hair and grey/blue eyes. She blushed as she took a better look at him. "H..hai?"
"I'm thirsty. What do you have to drink?"
"We have very good sake." She said in a voice which was almost too soft for Itachi to hear. He thought about it. He had tried sake before when one of the chunnin medic nin had tried making it as an experiment with fermentation and medicine. It hadn't been too bad.
"Alright."
Taro said "Some for me too."
Naruto said "I want some."
It seemed all of the other boys wanted some too. Itachi thought 'Why did neesan make them all look around my age?' But it was too late for him to say anything if he wanted to, the girl was gone. He sighed and said "Don't come crawling to me when you wake up and your head feels like someone beat it in. No more than one cup, got that?" They all nodded.
A couple of hours later, all of the group save Nekomi and Zabuza had gone up to their rooms, most of them because they were nearing unconsciousness. Nekomi and Zabuza had moved into the mixed bathing so he could change back to his original henge. They both had blushes across their noses from the sake.
Nekomi said "How many d'you have?"
Zabuza said "Hm...I dunno, I think I finished off a coupla bottles. You?"
"a'least three bottles. I think I'm drunk."
"Me too." They sat there in the hot spring.
Nekomi passed out. Zabuza drunkenly carried her to their room.
The next morning...
All woke up in their rooms with groans. Nekomi healed herself first, then Zabuza, then Naruto, Gaara and Haku who had been in the room with them. As the others stumbled to her room, she healed them too.
Itachi said "I just had a cup, but it feels like I drank a lot more than that."
Nekomi said "They refill cups when you're not looking instead of giving you new ones. It's easy to lose track. So, everyone better?" They nodded. Nekomi said "I think this adds a rule to the rulebook."
Zabuza said "Limit sake drinking to one cup a night when on missions." They all nodded. "Especially when you don't have a medic nin as part of your group."
They got seperated and washed up, dressed and made it back to her room. Then they set out.
In Konoha...
Preparations were being made for the chunnin exams.
Kakashi looked at his team. He had the dark avenger also known as Sasuke Uchiha, the fangirl also known as Sakura Haruno and a kid named Kai who was about as quiet as the Uchiha, but could still cause fights with him every time they went on a mission. It was clear that the two hated each other. Kakashi sighed. Why couldn't he get someone on the team that could lighten the mood? Every other team had a stabilizing force. Sakura was the one who should have fulfilled the role, but she just made things worse. Kurenai's team had Shino as a balance between the shy Hinata and the reckless Kiba. Asuma's team had the kind Akimichi to balance out the lazy shikamaru and the loud Ino. Even Gai's team had a halfway normal girl to balance out the Hyuuga and the over excitable Gai mini me. 'I can't believe I'm envying Gai.' He sighed 'I hate my life, at least they'll be chunnins soon and have their own teams.' He was walking towards the bookstand, hoping a new volume of Icha Icha had come out, to brighten up his dark mood, then it felt like electricity went up his spine when he saw 13 nin from waterfall walk into town. The one in front was a woman, he couldn't place her face, but something felt familiar about her. He walked up.
Nekomi noticed the Konoha nin from years before walking towards her. 'He can't be able to tell this is me. He doesn't even have his Sharingan uncovered.' She saw Itachi and Naruto frown. She said "I'll just go get something to eat before we sign in. We still have a couple of hours." Her group blocked Kakashi from following her, seemingly by accident, when they all decided to stop and talk. By the time Kakashi had pushed past, she was gone.
Kakashi sighed. Oh well, it was probably nothing. He wondered why some of them had looked at him so hatefully, though. He went on his way to the bookstore only to find they had no Icha Icha. 'I need a drink.'
Back with the Ban nins...
Naruto said "Hey, wasn't that the same guy from six years back?"
Gaara said "Yeah. Do you think he recognized mom?"
Nekomi showed back up in a slightly different henge, without the headband on this time.
"You changed?" Zabuza whispered.
Nekomi said "Only slightly. I'll reappear in my previous henge with the headband when we sign in. We really do have a couple of hours until we need to. Let's go get some food." She paused "We really shouldn't all go together, though, let's split up. I'll go with Zabuza's team. Each of you go with your 'jonin senseis'." Nods all around and they split up.
Nekomi let Naruto lead. Naruto looked around. He was glad that he had the necklace, though he held the people in contempt. They sure were nice now. They wouldn't be nice to him if they knew who he really was. He was sorely tempted to reveal himself to see their faces change.
Nekomi touched his shoulder. He turned around to look at her and she shook her head. He tried to calm down. It would be bad if he started something here, it would ruin his kaasan's plans and it would dissapoint her and he would never do something that would make her sad. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and opened them again. He smelled a good smell and pointed "There." They walked to a stand. Naruto looked up. 'Ichiraku...' He had a flashback.
There was a bowl of food that smelled like life on the table. He stared at it, not moving, afraid.
'You sounded hungry.'
'What is it?'
'Ramen.'
'For me?' The girl nodded with a smile.
'Gomen.'
Naruto blinked as he came out of the flashback. A smile began to light his face. She had been nice to him. One of the only ones. He said "I'll take a miso ramen. Make it four."
She looked at him in surprise "Four, just for you?"
Naruto grinned "I'm hungry."
The girl blushed and said "Coming right up. How about the rest of you?"
Gaara asked "Do you just have ramen?"
The girl nodded. "You're all ninja, right?"
Nekomi said "Hai, from waterfall."
"You must be here for the chunnin exams."
"Hai, we are. I'll take the same. Four bowls of miso."
Zabuza said "Four pork."
"Four chicken."
"Four miso for me, too."
The girl tallied up the bowls in her head "That's 12 bowls of miso, four bowls of pork and four of chicken. Be right back." She went into the back.
Zabuza asked "What's up? You sure cheered up. Don't tell me you like her?"
Naruto blushed a little "I do not. It's just...she was one of the only ones who was nice to me...before. I met her the day I got chased out. She gave me a bowl of ramen..."
Zabuza said "A story of love, seperated by mountains and seas, only to be reunited by fate..."
Naruto said "Shut up."
Gaara said "It sounds like you've been reading Nariko's romance novels again when you were on guard duty."
"Have not." Zabuza let it drop. Gaara smirked.
Nekomi was just glad that Naruto's mood seemed to have lightened. She hoped that Itachi was doing alright.
Meanwhile...
Itachi had left his team mates to eat barbeque, telling them that he had to go to the bathroom. The place he had picked had ended up not having one. Of course, they didn't need to know that he had planned it that way. He would be back before long. He needed to see his brother.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
So, what do you think readers? I know some of you were hoping for the chunnin exam this chapter, but rest assured, it will be in the next chapter. Until then, Ja ne.