If I said last time was the last time for awhile, sorry, this is the last time for awhile. Turns out I could finish a chaper in the few days before school starts tomorrow. Anyway, hope you like it.

Chapter 6 - Right under their noses.

Naruto ran quickly towards the training grounds where he had asked everyone to meet. This was insanely important. He skidded into the training grounds and nearly careened right into Ten-Ten.

"Watch it Naruto! Be careful." she said with a smile. He smiled apologetically before looking at the others gathered there. All of team Kuranai and team Gai were there. Shikamaru and Chouji were there along with Sakura and Sasuke . Naruto himself had hauled Sasuke back to the village almost a year before. It had been hell but they all pretty much got along with him now even if sometimes he wasn't on the the top of their list of who to talk to. He never quite got rid of his attitude.

"So why exactly are we here?" Neji asked wanting to get this over with.

"Well I got this letter from Gaara." Naruto began, raising said letter as proof. "He's doing well but he's asking us a favour."

Now they were curious. All attention was directed to Naruto as Chouji asked "What kind of favour?"

"Well, he's having some problems and wants us to do a kind of recognisance mission. Top secret private stuff that he needs all of us working like crazy on."

"He could have just put in a mission request." Shikamaru stated with a sigh.

"It's personal." Naruto defended.

"Yet he's trusting all of us with it?" Kiba commented with a skeptical look.

"Well yea. Got a problem?" Naruto snapped.

"Yea. Wanna go? Bring it blondie!" Kiba said with a vicious grin. Sasuke grabbed Naruto by his jacket to keep him from moving.

"Just tell us the mission dobe." he said before crossing his arms once again with a glare. Naruto huffed and muttered for a moment before continuing.

"He wants us to find out who's Temari's boyfriend cause she won't tell him or Kankuro." Naruto finally said and the others stared at him blankly. Shikamaru's eyes drifted to Kiba's face and was surprised to see a slightly surprised face turn to a small smile that seemed to go unnoticed by everyone else.

"That's it?" Neji asked breaking the silence. Naruto nodded.

"I'm not doing it. If the girls doesn't want to tell anyone not even her brothers why should I pry. We'll find out eventually." Kiba said throwing his arms behind his head with a frown. Shikamaru watched him bored yet slightly thoughtful look.

"Kiba's right Naruto." Hinata stated with a frown. "It wouldn't be right."

"Can't say I'd want to do that either." Chouji stated crossing his hands across his chest. He had lost enough weight to even be considered slim but it was all muscle now. His hair had gotten longer as well. "Temari's cool and all but if she finds out were spying on her, which she will, were all going to die. I'd rather not die yet."

"He's right she'd be beyond ticked." Ten-ten frowned while Neji didn't seem particularly inclined to participate either.

"I'm ticked and it's not me." Sakura fumed and Naruto inched away from her slightly.

"I don't believe that this is something we should do. Why? It is invasion of her privacy and betrayal of her trust."

"Besides it wouldn't be youthful, would it Lee?" Ten-ten commented turning to her green clad teammate. Lee immediately shook his head vigourously as rivers of tears rolled down his face. He gesticulated wildly but no-one understood him.

"What up with him?" Kiba asked at this weird behaviour that wasn't normal for the normal weird ninja.

"Last mission put him on mute for a while." Neji answered with a smirk. Enjoy it while it lasts.

"Neji." Ten-Ten said as she glared at him. He shrugged and they got back to the matter at hand. No one realised that Shilamaru had yet to say something... except Kiba of course.

"You're all looking at this the wrong way." Naruto told them. "Think about this from their point of view. Their one and only sister trampled and stepped on by someone that ought to care. No offence Shikamaru."

The lazy nin shrugged with a non committal grunt.

"Then she runs off and finds some new jerk that they don't know about. With no tine to heal from the horrid feat of a broken heart. No offence Shikamaru." Naruto continued and Shikamaru sighed but gave him a bored nod to continue. "Yea. They were unable to protect her and defend her from the bastard that shredded her! No offence Shikamaru."

Shikamaru groaned. This had to be his form of veiled revenge: guilt. A ninja is not supposed to feel guilt. Naruto's not supposed to be like this. What happen to the nice guy?

"So now they want to find out everything about this guy that suddenly sweeps their precious, precious, precious, sister off her feet so they can protect her and defend her from all that he could ever do to her." Naruto finally said with a far off gaze. There was silence as if they were all mesmerised by his speech.

"I'm in." Sakura stated with renewed spirit and Ten-Ten immediately agreed. Anything to help a friend. Neji nodded his assent along with a silent yet 'youthful' hurrah! from Lee.

"I'm still not going." Kiba stated with a slight frown. Did these people never think of what exactly 'protecting' and 'defending' their sister entailed? It certain carried a lot of pain.

"Neither will I." Shino agreed on the grounds that it still didn't feel right for him to spy on his friend even if they didn't speak much.

"Well the rest of us are. Right?" Naruto said and received various forms of agreement from the others. Kiba rolled his eyes before locking eyes with Shikamaru. His eyes read doom to the betrayer of the secret just as he had promised before. Shikamaru got the message very clearly hiding a shiver that threatened to travel across his body. He'd really hate to be the enemy of the feral Inuzuka.

"Yea well you guys have fun. Don't get caught now!" Kiba said pulling his eyes away to look around at the others with a smile. He and Shino walked away from the group.

"They were conned." Shino commented when they were a great enough distance away not to be heard. He had a frown etched onto the visible parts of his face at the complete changing of stance that had taken place. Kiba however smirked out of his rage of sight.

"Very much so."

"Those over-protective jerks! That con-artist! Who knew that little blond had it in him!" Temari ranted after hearing the story from Kiba. They were both in her hotel room. She paced before him as she continued to rave. He watched in amusement as she argued about being undermined by her own brothers. Suddenly she stopped and turned to him with a glare. "What are you smiling at?"

"I have a plan, an extremely fun plan." he said as his smile spread to a grin and he leaned forward in his seat in the sofa. Temari raised a weary brow at him. "How good are you with transformations?"

The undercover search team had split up into groups of twos except for Sakura and Sasuke's team that had Lee with them. Naruto and Hinata where just doing their rounds of the marketplace area when Naruto suddenly groaned.

"This would be so much easier if those two hadn't left!" he muttered looking around with a pouting frown. They both stopped by an ice-cream stand that a civilian couple was standing at. "They knew they were best for this, they're the trackers. They did this on purpose so we would take forever to find the guy!"

"I'm helping Naruto. I'm a tracker too." Hinata said with a small smile as she tried to comfort him. She'd always try to help, especially him.

"Yea but you can't find them. You don't have the ability. You can't do it like they can." Naruto said still in a grouchy mood. Hinata looked hurt but he didn't see it. He didn't see the glare that the 'civilian' man shot at him along with an irritated once over either. The 'civilian' woman pulled at the man sleeve to his attention back to her.

"Kiba don't blow our cover." she whispered covering it with a small smile. She was dress in a nice kimono and had her long brown hair caught up in a loose but neat bun. And her eyes were a soft creamy brown almost the colour of the ice-cream in her hands.

"Remind me to kill him for hurting Hinata's self-confidence later." Kiba growled just loud enough for her to hear and took a lick of his ice-cream. He was disguised as a black haired young man with sea-green eyes.

"You have cream on your face." Temari smiled at him and reached up with a paper napkin to wipe it off.

"You can't sniff out who she's been with the most or any one that has her scent on him. You can't track her with your own brand of tracking devices. It's useless." Naruto continued and Kiba stiffened as Hinata looked even more depressed. Temari mentally slapped herself when Kiba turned to the pair of ninja. Naruto and his big mouth.

"Excuse me there Mr. Ninja." Kiba began calling both Naruto and Hinata's attention. Temari laced an arm through Kiba's and they both smiled at their oblivious friends. Temari took a tentative lick of her ice-cream as Kiba began. "I couldn't help but over hear your conversation. I know you're all supposed to be really tough but you're still human enough to have feelings so can't you see you're depressing the girl?"

"I'm not depressing her I'm just saying I need a proper tracker." Naruto said in his defence and Hinata blushed in embarrassment. He needed a 'proper' ninja, did she not classify? Kiba, Hinata and Temari thought. Even Temari was ticked now but decided to hide her scowl by licking her really nice three scoop ice-cream.

"Well isn't she a tracker?" Kiba asked trying to stop his ticking brow from moving.

"Well yea but I don't want her tracking skills." Naruto said. He was just on a row.

'Man, he must love digging his grave.' Temari thought sneaking a look at Kiba's face. He was definitely not pleased.

"Aren't there different types of trackers?" Kiba asked through gritted teeth and thoughtfully licked his ice-cream with a raised brow.

"Yes but-"

"Then obviously she isn't the type of tracker you need! Go get the type you need!" he interrupted in almost expertly veiled irritation and pulled the top scoop off his ice-cream with a thoughtful look.

"They left." he stated as he was seriously beginning to question why he was even trying to explain this to a civilian. They wouldn't get it and he probably couldn't explain it to them.

"Then you're a very horrible leader!" Kiba said and slammed the scoop of ice-cream into Naruto's face. Everything froze as he wiped his hand clean on the front of Naruto's jacket. Everyone one was still gaping when he grabbed Temari's free hand and calmly said. "Come on honey. We need to run."

Temari quickly snapped out of her trance ditched her cone on Naruto's head and grabbed her kimono to free her before she ran along behind him. Narito stood dumbfounded as he watched them beat a hasty retreat. He was still in shock when he heard a small sound beside him and turned to see Hinata trying to hide her giggles behind her hand.

"What?" Naruto exclaimed throughly confused. Did CIVILIANS really just cream him, a NINJA?

"To what do we owe this tasty treat?" he heard a voice ask and a felt a finger swipe some of the cream off his face. He looked to the side to see Kakashi grinning at him from beneath his mask. Now Hinata couldn't hold it in any longer and erupted in to a fit of laughter.