Chapter 4: Truce

Ino just departed Hokage's office with swift speed as she was nearing her objective point.

(flashback)

"I hear there's a problem regarding our recent arrest that has built up a mess near the front gate. Ino, I want you to go there ASAP and clear up the situation. This will be your first assignment as jounin!"

"WHAT? I passed the jounin exam?!?!?"

"Yes. Now hurry, before the situation elevates even worse."

"Hai!"

(/flashback)

"Finally, all that tough work wasn't put to waste. I can't believe I'm jounin!!! Anyways, I should concentrate on the mission. Our recent capture involved three mysterious suspects plus a pet bear…, I think. Although their appearance and arrival is skeptical, they were declared innocent by Ibiki-san in the end. If Godaime believes that the problem occurring now is related to that, then it must be their friends. I better try to stop them before they can cause any more trouble."

With her priorities cleared, she sped up in hopes of reaching the front gate in time.

-SCENE-

"Melllooooriiinne! If you want me to stop, I will," Sanji shouted in lovey-dobey mode.

The blonde in front of him was of absolute beauty to him. She had long beautiful blonde hair. The purple outfit she wore definitely fit with her features and darling blue eyes. Sanji was love struck…, just like many of the other girls he encountered.

-SCENE-

"Ino. Why did you stop us?" Lee was confused. It was very inappropriate to stop mid-battle when in confrontation with the enemy. He planned to just ignore her, but neglected his gut feeling for the sake of following the shinobi way.

"There's a whole misunderstanding about all of this. There's…," she said before she stopped herself. She glanced over and saw her latest chuunin boyfriend on the ground, knocked out cold.

She immediately ran over to him and bent down beside him. She lifted him up to her knee and observed in horror the bruises on him.

"Wh…, who did this?" she asked in a cold dark voice.

-SCENE-

Sanji watched as he saw the beautiful female slow evolve into something more dark. Although he still found her very charming, her silent anger spooked him immensely.

"I'm sorry. I think I accidentally kicked him several times. But it's okay. If you want, I can be…," he said before the environment around slowly faded away.

He soon found himself in an open field with hills and hills of grass. Then a giant devil-like titan popped out of the ground all of a sudden.

"What the hell?" It then grabbed his whole body with one hand. The giant figure grinned viciously as it squeezed the life out of this poor cook. Sanji could do nothing but shriek as the pain of crushed bones developed all over his body.

-SCENE-

Rock Lee observed as he saw his opponent and comrade both froze. He managed to catch Ino doing some handseals right before they ended up paralyzed.

Rock Lee crossed his legs while sitting down and began to concentrate. He put on his thinking cap and started analyzing what was going on. "Now let me see. What does this mean? Although I don't know much about ninjutsu or genjutsu, the handseals she used look very similar... Wait, if I'm correct, it looks something similar to Shintenshin no Jutsu… Oh yeah! She used it on a mission once when I was teamed up with her. It's Shintenshin Genkaku (Illusion) no Jutsu. It can get very ugly if she gets creative… Although about now, he would be bedridden for at least two weeks, I better stop before it gets any worse."

Then the shinobi in the green spandex suit walked over and started shaking Ino to get her to snap out of it. He noticed that she came to stop the fight, so it didn't make much sense if she ended up killing him.

"Kill! Kill!" she shouted right before she realized where she was again. She then held her aching head and stared at Lee. "What did you do that for?"

Lee pointed at the victim and they saw that their blonde opponent was on the floor, writhing in pain. "What? He deserved it. What's-his-name was planning a surprise birthday party for me and now look at what that guy did to him!"

-SCENE-

Sanji immediately recovered back to normal once he realized it was some elaborate ninja trick. He stood back up and dusted himself off. He turned to the blonde kunoichi with a seductive smile. "So how about dinner some time?"

The ninjas just stared at him in awe. "What? Is something on my face?"

-SCENE-

Ino was in a state of shock. Although her technique was only a trick of the mind, it can cause serious damage. Especially with her fueling anger back there. But this guy was able to take all of that and some. For some reason, the blonde guy didn't look so shabby right now…

Before he can distract her any longer, she turned and saw Neji and his opponent still fighting fiercely. "Oh crap! Uh, what should I do now?" she panicked. She then turned to the taijutsu master and he gave an immediate nod.

"I know Neji, and if the opponent isn't slowing down, neither will he. It will be a tough task holding him back, let alone the other person…"

"Don't worry. I'll handle my idiot captain. But before that, may I ask your name? I'm Sanji." the man asked earnestly.

"Very well then. I'm Rock…"

"Don't care," he curtly replied as he pushed him away to get closer to the other person present in the area that wasn't knocked unconscious. He held the female's hand and looked into her eyes. "What's your name?"

Lee crouched down surrounded by an aura of depression for being ignored. "Somehow I now know how Naruto feels in his earlier years…"

"Uh…," she replied speechless while blushing slightly. "I'm…," she was about to introduce herself before battle cries came from where Neji and the straw hat man stood.

-SCENE-

"Gomu Gomu no Senjukannon!"

"Hakke Rokujuuyon Kuushou (Eight Trigrams: 64 Empty Palms)!"

Before the explosion of fists and palm erupted, two human cyclones quickly dashed to the scene, and captured each man's hands before they were launched in full power.

"Good job, Akamaru!" said Kiba, while staring back at his pet that was still in Juujin Bunshin form. Akamaru barked proudly as he held the suspect's hands tightly.

"What do you think you're doing?" Neji asked irritated.

"I was walking by and I heard a 'STOP', so I felt it was my place to stop you two."

"Man, you stink," the straw hat man rudely said to the figure that confined him rather tightly. Akamaru growled at him ferociously, Luffy started growling threateningly back.

"Good job, Kiba!" Ino yelled as she ran over. Once she got there, she stood in front of the two and began to explain. "It's all a misunderstanding…"

-SCENE-

"Ah I see! So wait, are you guys still the bad guys?" asked a confused Luffy right before he slurped down another ramen bowl.

"For the fiftieth time Luffy, no!" told an impatient Sanji. They just got through with all of the introductions and the situation was explained. Sure there were some mysterious aspects of the situation, but they agreed to deal with it another time. "I mean, how can such beautiful women be a part of some evil village?" he commented as he stared obviously at the two kunoichi with a heart full of love. It was night after all, maybe he has the opportunity to be with a girl overnight…, or 2!

Ino blushed, while Tenten decided to change the subject. "Will your green hair friend be all right? I hope I didn't hurt him too bad," said Tenten who was still bearing lot of wounds herself.

"Zoro? No, he's just sleeping. Another bowl of ramen, please!" called out Luffy. He was eating bowl after bowl, while Ino was regretting that she decided to treat them.

"If I knew this guy ate like Chouji or Naruto, I should've said to each their own…"

Sanji noticed her staring at her money with a look of concern and he knew what the gentleman-like thing to do was. "Don't worry. I'll cover it, Ino-swaaaan!"

"Are you sure? I mean you guys are guests of Konoha and it wouldn't be right to ask for such a thing," she replied. Of course, that was an obvious lie. She was planning to save some cash for this new beauty product she has been wanting.

"No problem at all," he said with his heart fluttering. "Check, please!"

"I'm not full yet," Luffy complained as he rubbed his stomach.

Sanji decided it was best to explain it to him privately, so he dragged him aside and started whispering. "We can't allow these beautiful ladies to pay for our meals. I mean, we can do almost anything with them if they're happy with us!" Sanji replied before he started fantasizing his erotic dreams.

"I don't get it…"

"C'mon. You may be dumb, but how can you NOT know what I'm talking about."

"I still don't get it…"

Infuriated by his lack of manly desires, he now decided it was best to explain it to him a different way. With a solid kick to the head!

"Understand now?"

"Hai…"

Sanji slowly pranced back to the ramen stand and restated what he said before. "Check, please!"

Ayame (the daughter of the ramen stand owner) came out of the back after her short break. "Hai, hai!" she responded.

"Melllllllorrrine!" he cried as he spun around filled with love at first sight.

"That'll be 500 ryou (just making up some random number here, seeing that I don't know how this unit of money converts to U.S dollars)."

"500 beli, that's pretty cheap. Very pretty…," he said in a daze.

"Beli?" Ayame asked.

"What's a ryou? Does it taste good?" asked Luffy after recovering a vicious blow.

"Wow. I guess it's safe to say that you guys are really from out of town… Hell, out of this world! I never heard of a place that used beli before!" Tenten commented.

"Damn, I guess I have to pay after all," Ino realized as she reluctantly pulled out money from her purse.

-SCENE-

"Ah, so you guys use ryou currency here. Where we're from we use beli," said Usopp as he walking along the sidewalk with Nami, Robin, Chopper, and their tour guy, Naruto. "Where the heck are we? Maybe I'm still dreaming…"

"Well whatever currency, I love it here!" cried Nami happily. She had bags and bags of purchased necessities, as she called it, which was being all held by Chopper. "Let's try that place next!"

"Nami, I don't think I can carry anymore…"

"Suck it up Chopper. Although the day is near its closing, we still have many shops to visit. We can't let this free money go to waste!" she said as she held out all her coupons.

Naruto laughed as he offered to help with carrying the stuff, but Nami insisted Chopper can handle it. She didn't want a few items to accidentally go missing now.

"And right there is the Ichiraku ramen stand I was talking about earlier. It has the best ramen around," he said cheerfully.

"Well, I guess I'm kinda hungry. How about you guys?" Nami asked.

"Of course! We've been asking you if we can go eat the whole time for ten hours," Usopp cried while he was suffering the pains of hunger.

"Yeah!" Chopper agreed with the purchases he's carrying covering his face.

"Well, if you wanted to eat so much, why didn't you guys go wander off in your own, while I was busy shopping," she suggested with a wicked stare.

"No! After hearing about all those ninja-type moves, we'll die once we go on our own!" freaked out the coward sharpshooter.

"Yeah!" shouted out the humanized reindeer, who always seemed to be easily influenced by Usopp's words.

"Don't tell me the great Captain Usopp-sama is afraid of a little bit of ninjas," mocked Nami cruelly.

"What? No I can take on thousands of them at a time. I'm just worried for your safety…"

As they bounce back cries and replies, Naruto found it was best to intervene. "Ramen, it is!"

"Yay!" cheered Usopp and Chopper.

"Actually, I'm more interested in knowing more about this village. Don't mind me, I'll walk around," said Robin.

"Okay then! We'll meet you back at that hotel we have a coupon for. You remember where it is?"

"Yes, I do," she replied as she walked away.

As they came closer to the ramen stand Naruto has been talking about, they immediately noticed two familiar faces.

"Hey, look! It's Luffy and Sanji," Chopper said cheerfully. He noticed them stand outside the stand, taking to each other privately. He was about to run over to then, but Usopp immediately held him back.

"It could be a trick. Don't you remember what he (points to Naruto) said about that Henge no Jutsu thingy. It could be an imposter!" warned Usopp.

"An imposter!?!??!"

"You're being an idiot," the navigator stated matter-of-factly.

"Hmmm, it's possible," Naruto replied with a thinking face on.

"Oh yeah. Fine, but if they ARE fakes, once we go to sleep, they'll slit our throats off!"

Chopper jumped while Nami still stayed calm. "Yeah, okay…," she said sarcastically.

"And then they'll steal EVERYTHING," he added.

Nami now jumped and dragged everybody to the side, so the possible imposters wouldn't notice them.

"What do we do then?" Chopper panicked.

"We'll have Naruto beat them up!" suggested Usopp.

"Yeah! I could grab him from being with my clones and then…," Naruto added as him and Usopp shared a wicked grin.

"No, no, guys. We should check if they're really fakes first. Let's just get a little closer and see how they behave," Nami told them.

They agreed with her more reasonable and snuck up close slowly just within hearing range.

"Eh?!?!? Sanji just kick Luffy. He is a fake!" declared Chopper rather loudly once he saw a leg drop on the back of their captain's head delivered by the cook.

"No, no. Sanji's always kicking Luffy for being his usual slow self. We need more evidence!" stated the orange-haired navigator.

"Melllllllorrrine!"

"What's a ryou? Does it taste good?"

"That's them alright…," the three stated in embarrassment. They then began to walk toward the ramen stand to meet up with their nakama.

Once they made up their mind, the blonde jinchuuriki made a dash to his favorite place to eat. "Oh hey, Tenten and Ino. You guys are here for the ramen too?" Naruto asked cheerfully as he sat down on a seat. Before they could answer, he immediately ordered ten bowls of ramen.

"Hey, I'm not paying for you too!" shouted Ino.

"Who said anything about me letting you pay for me in the first place?" Naruto shouted back bitterly. Them and their natural enmity never seem to have worn off these past 7 years.

"Hey, you! That's no way to speak to a…," Sanji began before he saw his missing nakama again. "Nami-swaaaan! I missed you so much!!!!!" he cried as he ran to grab her. Since Usopp and Chopper were in front of her, he knocked them away so he can make a way to his favorite navigator.

"Oi, oi, oi," they said in unison bitterly. "We were missing too, you know…"

He just ignored them while he attempt to affectionately hug from Nami. Unfortunately, her natural self defense didn't allow him to get so far. She kicked him in the nuts before he had a chance. He fell over to the ground while writhing in pain. However, his

"I missed you too," she coldly replied as she stepped over him.

"Yo Nami," Luffy said as he watching intensely at Naruto eating.

"I'll get a bowl of ramen, please!" called Nami as she arranged her coupons. "So Luffy, have you been causing trouble. I see you have some bruises and cuts on you..."

"Yep. I fought with this white eyeball guy and I would've kicked his ass too, but a smelly guy that later turned into a dog stopped us from continuing."

"Oh, you must be talking about Neji and Kiba. Hmmm, although Kiba do tend to pick a lot of fights, Neji usually doesn't. You did something wrong?" Naruto asked as he started eating his third bowl.

"Well, I did break down a huge gate and knock out 20-30 something ninjas. Other than that, no."

Nami dropped her jaw, while Naruo just laughed. "Must've been some kind of misunderstanding, huh?"

"How many times do I have to tell you, CAPTAIN? You should stop acting so reckless! I swear I have an idiot for a leader," she commented with a hand on her forehead.

"Don't get so bent over shape about it. Tsunade-obaachan can take care of them, no sweat," he reassured to make her feel better.

"Yeah, don't worry about it. Hey Nami, are you going to eat that?"

"Since when do you ask to...," she began before she saw that the the bowl in front of her was gone. "Don't ask if you're not going to wait for an answer!"

Meanwhile, back at Usopp, Chopper, and Sanji...

"Hey, Sanji, I got you something you might like while Nami wasn't looking," Usopp said with a giggle as he pulled out a book.

"A book? What's so special about a book?" he asked as his eyes rolled over to the title. "Icha Icha Paradise Volume 4..."

He began flipping through the pages as his perverted grin started to reveal.

"Ah, volume 4. A truly classic! Chapter 4 have a very nice scene, you know?"

"Oh yeah? I'll turn to it right now!" replied Sanji as he flipped to the suggested chapter. He began blushing, reading, and giggling like a school girl not long afterwards.

"I see you guys are reading my fourth book from the Icha Icha Paradise series. I have to say I enjoy writing this book the most. Lot of interesting research took while I was writing this."

"I can also say I have "interesting" stories of my own while reading this book. Good times..."

"Man, this chapter is too much!" the cook cried happily as he continued reading. "Oh yeah..., who the HELL are you guys!?!?!?" he asked once he realized he was talking to two white haired male strangers, one who happened to have a mask covering most of his face on.

"Ero-sennin! Kakashi-sensei! You guys just came back?" called out the blonde shinobi from the ramen stand.

"Yep!" he said loudly enough fo his disciple to hear. "Don't listen to the brat. I'm known to all as Jiraiya-sama, one of the three Sannins of Konoha and the author of the book you're reading now!" he said as he began one of his wacky poses.

"Yo! I'm Hatake Kakashi." he introduced as he stared at Chopper. "I feel for some shikaniku (deer meat) tonight..."

"Gah!!!! I'm a reindeer, not food!" screamed Chopper as he hid behind Usopp's leg.

-SCENE-

A figure hidden in the shadows was smoking a cigar as he stared out the large window. "The moon is lovely tonight, isn't it?" he commented.

A half naked lady that was sitting on his lap and kissing his neck then replied, "Absolutely lovely..."

"I see that the genjutsu I have working for you is working fine," said another woman who just abruptly entered the room. She was wearing a tight navy blue shirt that was very revealing to her cleavage, along with tight black pants and high heels. Her red hair soon shined from the light of tonight's moon.

"Darling, you may go back to your chamber," he softly spoke to the female. She stood back up, put back on her clothes, and left obediently.

"What is it do you have to report, Gamei?" he asked coldly as he adjusted his robe.

"We have a problem with the landing of our new soldiers... They landed hundreds of kilometers off from the assigned destination."

The man started laughing quietly to himself as he stood up to pace around. "I should've known that piece of s would do whatever he can to mess this up for me!" He then kicked the table that was in front of him, sending it crashing through the wide window.

"No need to be so harsh. He was your former best friend now, wasn't he?"

"I should've known his value to Koragen would be degraded to nothing even with the help of your genjutsu!"

"What can I say? Professor Setsui has a strong mind. When he found out this whole operation of justice turned out be a plot of gain gaining world domination...," Gamei began before her boss interupted her.

"No need to say anymore... Anyways, I half-expected some means of betrayal would come from him, even under a powerful spell like yours. We'll just have his former subordinate clean up this mess," he stated as he calmly sat back down.

"General Hayze? Are you sure that middle-aged fat f can handle this? Who knows? He might even end up betraying us in the honor of you sending his sensei to a hospital bed permanently..."

"That bastard is lucky that I still spared his life! Anyways, I happen to know Hayze's motives very well. Setsui told me that he would send his own freaking mother to the grave if that means he will leave a legacy upon exiting this world. I also happen to be the man that can give him such a title. That new serum he and Setsui had been working on should give his unit enough power to do battle with whomever that will stand in our way."

"You do know that it was incomplete before Setsui decided to back out, right? Who the hell knows if Hayze is able to finish the formula for the way it was intended?"

"We'll call it an experiment then. Tell him and his unit to move in the location of the Straw Hat Pirates then. Where are they located again?"

"Konoha."