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Kazumi stood over the poor stable boy, the snarl bubbling up from her throat probably scaring him more than the actual wolf baring her teeth at him from beside her master. The freckle faced red-head scooted away from the black clad, sunglass wearing girl who was slowly advancing on him, the shredded remains of the crop he had been using on her horse a moment previous lying at her feet. When she spoke, it was in a deadly whisper.

"If I ever see your face again, you're going to end up like that," she indicated the remains of the crop on the ground.

"Do I make myself clear?" she asked, dragging him to his feet by his collar, before throwing him forcefully from her person. He scampered away, beating the hastiest retreat possible for someone of commoner level skills. She snarled at his retreating back before turning to her horse. He was still standing in his stall, as though nothing had happened, but he snorted indignantly in the ruined crops direction all the same. She chuckled.

"That's for not biting him sooner," she teased softly, before picking up his brush and beginning to work the tangles from his mane and tail.

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"Shino, you can go now, or later, but you will go." Said his father from the other side of the door, his bugs swarming around him in a desperate attempt to keep his son's own annoyed familiars from doing any real damage. A muffled voice from the other side of the door was his only answer.

"What?" he asked, raising his voice slightly. "I can't hear you."

The door to his son's room was nearly torn from its hinges as it was wrenched open. Shino's angry face, minus the glasses, glared up at his father. Enunciating every word carefully, but still using the entire weight of his anger in every syllable, the young bug master ground out his answer through his teeth.

"Fine. As long as this torture ends as soon as possible. Then. So. Be. It." He snarled, grabbing his coat and cramming his glasses onto his face before heading for the door, angrily slamming his own shut on his way out.

Shibi Aburame rolled his eyes to the heavens.

"Why, Kami? Why?"

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"The young master?" asked the stable hand, blinking at the strange procession. Tsunade stood next to Sakura, as the both were accompanying Shino and Shibi on their first introduction to Shino's fiancé. After all, this was a matter of national security. No, really.

The startled servant pointed in the direction of the stables, then went back to his task of scrubbing buckets in the gutter outside the mansion the Kuwada family had been given, as part of the agreement. Well, more like the Eldest Child, Shino's soon to be wife, had been given, as it supposedly belonged to her.

Sticking her head through the doorway into the dimly lit stable, Sakura called out around the large heads now looking at them curiously over stall doors.

"Hello? Anyone here?"

"What do you want?" asked an annoyed voice from above them. They all looked up to see a young woman, dressed in a black work shirt, jeans, boots, and dark sunglasses standing in the rafters above them, which was being used for hay storage. Her black hair had been tied up and wrapped with some sort of scarf, and she was also wearing thick hide gloves. She was sweat soaked and dirty. She tilted her head to the side, one hand wrapped around a support beam the only thing keeping her from falling to the ground floor.

"Yeah," said Sakura. "We were looking for Kawada-san."

"Oh," said the girl, leaping down easily to stand in front of them, all with the grace of a fully fledged shinobi. The others all tensed, none of them having sensed that she had any such training. She walked over to a hay bale she had tossed to the ground earlier and slit the twine around it with a kunai, before beginning to distribute it to the eagerly waiting horses.

"My father's probably back in the house somewhere, making arrangements and whatever." She said, her back to them as she stroked the nose of a huge black stallion, who nuzzled her shoulder roughly before she pulled out a carrot and fed it to him. Sakura was the first to break the silence.

"You're the Kawada family's eldest child?" she asked, incredulity in her voice. The girl turned to her, cocking her head to the side.

"Yeah, what's it to you?" she asked, rather snappishly.

"Uh, well…it's just…that is to say…" the Hokage's apprentice was grasping for words, desperately trying to fix the blunder she had just walked straight into, like an unseen tree.

"Continue, please. No one's stopping you." The girl said, her voice dripping with icy sarcasm. Sakura turned abruptly to Shino, intent on turning the failing conversation over to him, and stopped dead in her tracks. The bug master was gaping at the girl before them, mouth fully hanging open as he regarded her in disbelief over the top of his shades, which had slid down to the end of his nose.

"What are you lookin' at, short stuff?" she growled, her mouth twisting into a frown. Shino quickly snapped his mouth shut, pushing his shades back up onto his face before replying.

"Nothing, just wondering when they decided for me that I was gay." He snapped. The girl turned a bright scarlet color.

"You must be the Loser they set me up with." She said, her voice dangerously quiet. "Well, I wasn't aware that walking anthills qualified for the Academy these days."

"I must say the same, though judging by your appearance, you must work for some poor sap that lost everything on the Glory Days." Shino shot back, referring to an old term for Whore houses.

The girl smiled sweetly at him.

"It's been a pleasure meeting you, as well, Bug-san. Until the next time we are unfortunate enough to cross paths." She tilted her head slightly in his general direction, then turned on her heel, a loud whistle their only warning before the giant black wolf that had been lazing in the corner chased them from the premises.

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"What the hell was that? She's rude, uncivilized, and completely unsuited for life as a shinobi! I don't care if she graduated top of her class, there is no way that thing is a ninja!" yelled Shino.

He and his father were standing across the room from each other, squared off for the biggest brawl any of the gathered party had ever seen. Sakura and Tsunade were mulling over how to fix the current fiasco, while Kiba and Hinata had come to try and calm Shino down, just a smidgen.

Suffice it to say, neither group was having any success, whatsoever.

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"He's a pig-headed idiot from the next town over who wouldn't last a day in the fields! You expect me to marry some sap that just stands there like an ant hill? What the hell is this?! There is no way I'm marrying that loser!" Kazumi yelled, her ferocious anger making her tower over her father, who was backed up against the wall, despite his best efforts to stand his ground.

Suffice it to say, he had failed miserably.

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Well, aren't they sweet? They just love each other so much…and after just one meeting…they're the perfect couple…*snicker*…

Till next we meet…bug-san…

L8R

WPD