Drifting

by AlphaDelta1001

Naruto is many things; troublesome, wild, unpredictable, adventurous, untamable, unique. But there's a benefit to being wild and unpredictable; no one has the faintest idea what you're going to do next. NarutoHarem

16. Jobs Arc - Another Day, Another Dollar

NARUTO

Drifting

Another Day, Another Dollar

The next day…

Pushing open the door to his apartment and stepping into the corridor beyond, Naruto breathed in deeply and stretched his arms wide open. "Ah. It's good to be back."

Following the boy in shortly afterwards, Tayuya also marched into the hall and kicked off her sandals, joining them with his at the foot of the step. "Sometimes I wonder how shit ever gets done around this village if basic paperwork takes that long. I mean… how long does it take to write up civilian documentation?" Since this was a shinobi village, procedure was incredibly important.

But really, how many outsiders did Konohagakure accept that paperwork would take so long to be handed down to the lower level of the administration building to be processed through the appropriate channel? Honestly, that had to be the most boring department ever considering the number of new civilians the village received from outside, at best, was at least one four-person family every couple of weeks.

"Apparently a whole day and night," Naruto answered with a shrug, turning around and smiling towards the door. When Tayuya moved out of the way, he saw Isaribi poke her head into view and look down the hall. The boy grinned when he saw her timid expression cut towards him and gestured her inside. "Come on, Isaribi-chan."

Gulping, the girl did as instructed and wandered over the threshold. "A-Are you sure? I… I don't want to intrude or anything."

"Hey, you let me into your place. It's only fair that I open my door to you," Naruto exclaimed, stepping aside and showing her the entire stretch of his apartment from their current position.

Technically he'd broken into her place, but that wasn't the point. He was a good host who'd offered Isaribi a place to stay in a village she'd never set foot in, and he was going to live up to that offering even if it killed him.

Acknowledging his open arms, Isaribi did as the other two teenagers did and followed them in, making sure to slip off her sandals at the step. Hopping after their shadows, she was given a thorough, guided tour of their lovely home. She was first shown the bathroom, the most important room of the house of course, followed by the living room and then kitchen, also two very important chambers. Everything had been left as it was when Tayuya was last here and nothing was moved out of place, which was a good thing because it meant no extra cleaning needed to be done.

The place was as clean as a teenager's home could be, so they had no excuses for any unattended goods that were lying around.

Eventually the tour led the group to the bedroom, where Isaribi was introduced to the pillow and mattress fort that was their sleeping space. The girl blinked in bewilderment at the untamed and untidy room that was Naruto and Tayuya's den, with the former immediately staggering in and flopping down on top of the pile of massive, squishy pillows lying in the center of the chamber.

"Oh Kami… finally! I've missed my bear cave," Naruto sighed, closing his eyes.

Isaribi stared at the boy as he lay atop his disorganized mass of head rests. "Is this… really how you guys sleep?"

"It's no daimyo's quarters, but it beats passing out in an ordinary bed," Tayuya exclaimed from the entrance, watching as the purple haired girl's eyes turned to her. "Just drop your shit wherever and crash on whatever space you want. You must be stuffed."

Still baffled by this young pair's living situation, Isaribi then considered her own state of self and smiled slightly. "Actually… I am a little bit tired."

"Cool," the red head chirped, pointing towards the closet and the desk in the room one after the other, "Clothing goes in there and that's Naruto's trophy desk displaying his many accomplishments and souvenirs. I'm going to grab some breakfast." Thumbing over her shoulder, Tayuya saluted and turned heel. Just before she could leave however, she leaned back and waved at the girl through the doorway. "Welcome to your new home. You're going to love it here."

"Yes. Th-Thank you," Isaribi nodded, smiling as Tayuya left before looking about the domicile curiously.

Stepping over the groaning jinchuriki as he sunk into his familiar stack of pillows, the new girl stopped in front of his desk of 'many things.' Aside from the books and documents strewn about, he also had a butt load of photographs and trinkets from his many past adventures. She could see chaos and fun times of all sorts depicted in the frameless images, with those that did have frames being some of his most cherished memories. There were a lot of pictures with both him and Tayuya, the two of them dressed in formal robes, indicating that they had been to a couple of festivals together. The pair appeared really happy in the images, which made Isaribi uncomfortably tight on the inside.

Strange.

There was also some other stuff lying around. Besides the katana in the black scabbard, there was also a kunai with a weird protrusion on it, a red clover preserved in a glass cube, a burnt sealing tag, a pair of rusty trench knives, a piece of stone tablet with weird markings on it and a headband that had been snapped in half. If this didn't raise a few questions as to what the boy had gotten up to over his many years in the village, then the pairs of women's lingerie certainly did.

Blushing brightly at the sight of the underwear, Isaribi turned around to see a sheepishly grinning Naruto staring back at her. "Yeah… that was from the time three kunoichi snuck into my home and tried to kill me. Fun story that one. I'll tell you more about it later."

"O-kay…" Was this going to be a PG rated story? She hoped it was…

Naruto jumped to his feet and scratched his head. "Well. This is… our place of residence. I'm sorry if it's a little small. I'm thinking of actually getting an extension on it. Nobody lives in the flat next door on account of me being a jinchuriki, so I was thinking…"

"Oh, it's okay," Isaribi spoke up, cutting him off and smiling brightly. She rubbed her arm where her bandages were as she presented a very anxious reflection of herself. "I think it's really nice. It's just… you didn't have to ask me to come stay with you…"

"No problem!" Naruto cut in while waving his hand dismissively, "It's great having people over. It definitely beats living on your own."

"Y-Yeah… that's true," Isaribi replied, smiling warmly at the boy as she swayed on the spot. "Again… thank you…"

Beaming and looking positively elevated from his new guest's expression of gratitude, Naruto then gave the girl a thumbs-up before stepping over to the door. "Well, I think it's about time I go find Kakashi-sensei and my team and go apologize to them for all the trouble I've caused."

Just as he was about to march down the corridor and out of sight of the room, the boy was suddenly jerked to a stop when he felt something grab his arm. Surprised, he turned around to find Isaribi right behind him, her hand gripping his wrist and her body positioned inside of the room, preventing him from leaving too quickly. Looking the girl over to see what was wrong, Naruto quickly noticed that his new apartment resident was gazing at her feet with a nervous face and red in her cheeks.

"W-What's wrong, Isaribi-chan?"

"N-Naruto-kun… I… uhh… I just…" Starting off nervous, the girl stammered slightly before panning up to face him again. Seeing his kind eyes fixed upon her, Isaribi gazed into them for a few moments before giving the boy a smile. "It's nothing." She let him go, deciding to hold back on what she wanted to say to him.

Still not set, seeing as how she just took his wrist so suddenly and still appeared a bit restless after releasing it, the Genin nevertheless gave her a smile in return and nodded. With all that said and done the jinchuriki then moved down the hall and made haste for the front door, leaving the purple haired girl alone in the shared bedroom to set her bag down wherever she wanted and to become accustomed to her new quarters.

Unbeknownst to both of them however, Tayuya had been leaning against the kitchen wall listening in. After hearing the small words thrown between the pair and picking up the stutter from Isaribi, the red head smiled assuredly to herself before turning back to her previous task of making herself a sandwich.

XXX

One week and a bit later…

Sasuke grumbled lowly to himself as he finished laying the sheet of rice paper over the newly constructed frame of one of the many shoji doors he and his teammates were helping to put together. Giving the final product a long, hard stare and assessing its end quality, the Uchiha then breathed a weary sigh and moved on to his next product, choosing to blank out everything that he was doing and immerse himself into some more pleasant thoughts rather then this mood killing task.

Following Naruto and Tayuya's little punishment after their little vanishing act from the village things went back to business as usual for all the teams. Everybody made up, stories were told and schedules were reset. Of course, to commemorate the safe return of their teammate and to pick things up properly from where they'd left off, Kakashi decided to finally reward his squad for all their hard with a well-deserved C-Rank mission.

The low-key assignment the team was given involved them helping a monk in a neighboring temple to fix the sliding walls of his structure and to take care of the building in his absence. There were a lot of artifacts of value inside the structure, and part of their job also involved them protecting the material from any would-be thieves and bandits who weren't afraid to encroach upon Kami's domain for a quick buck.

While it seemed like a tedious mission for some and a pointless task for others, it was still the group's first C-Rank mission ever, one that gave them something to do with their time and tested their patience as a squad. Along with Kakashi, who was sitting idly by filing the wooden sticks for the doors and gluing them together, everyone was contributing to the job in some way.

Sakura was busy laying out the framework and making sure all the measurements were correct, whereas Naruto was hammering the wooden pillars together, being the deceptively creative architect that he was. Since he had to rebuild and fix his apartment from blowing it up all the time, he'd gotten pretty good at stuff like this. He screwed up his first one and had to start over much to his chagrin, but he was soon on track again and making real use of his skills. He also had clones up and about putting up the finished sliding doors on the other side of the room where the walkway was, making sure everything was in place and ensuring the things didn't fall out.

They even had glass doors they were helping to fit back in, and with the head monk away on a week-long mission of his own, this left them plenty of time to whittle in peace.

"I still can't believe it," Sakura giggled, shaking her head as she looked across at Naruto to see him look up at her. "You have a bridge named after you. A bridge." The Hokage had shown the entire team a paper of the post-Gato-crisis that had befallen Wave Country on their most recent trip to the administration building, the same country Naruto had been unintentionally shanghaied too in the time he'd been missing. While at first his friends were unable to comprehend the story when he'd told them himself and shrugged it off as mere folly, when the Third regaled them with the details of the name given to the new structure across the channel in person, it left two of the members of the team absolutely baffled. "So… all of those stories you told us of your adventures outside the village… they weren't a lie?"

Naruto grinned back at the pinkette and shook his head. "Nope. It's all true." He then drew circles with his finger in the air in front of him. "I'm going to add them to my memoirs when I finally take up the big job at the end of my career."

Rolling her eyes at his smirk, Sakura continued to work on her doors. "That makes two then, doesn't it?" Remembering the jinchuriki's previous stories, the girl glanced up at him briefly to check his expression before looking back down. "Two countries you've saved; one two and a half years ago and another just a couple of weeks ago… all from the same person. That's just…"

"Incredible? Awe-inspiring? Heroic?"

"I… was going to say outrageous, but sure. Let's go with incredible."

Naruto chuckled as he then gave the girl a hopeful look. "Does this mean you're finally going to start seeing me as an awesome ninja?"

Giving his inquiry a moment of thought, Sakura smirked slyly at her friend and pointed at him. "I always thought you were a good ninja, Naruto. But just because you saved two countries and defeated an S-Class ninja doesn't mean I'm suddenly going to start falling head-over-heels for you." She then gazed fondly in her other teammate's direction. "My heart will always be for Sasuke-kun."

The Uchiha, hearing the girl's blatant proclamation of love for him, grunted indignantly and chose to ignore them. Even though he too had been just as surprised as Sakura at the whole Naruto saving an entire country story, his pride kept him from getting all praiseworthy for his lifelong rival. Since his main focus was trying to become strong enough to defeat 'that' man, there were only so many pats on the back he could give before he started hitting the guy for real.

Naruto was Naruto to him; just the prank-pulling, class-dodging, ramen-eating delinquent who was not afraid to pick a fight.

Right now though, the Uchiha was more focused on getting this mission done than worrying about his teammate's heroism. Though he wasn't sure about the other two, who seemed to be enjoying this job quite a bit, this was still monotonous, mind numbing work.

This went doubly for the genius, since he'd been unlucky enough to be stuck with the papers.

Getting glue on his hand again, the genius tried brushing it against the floor but unwittingly ended up getting sheets caught on his hand and lifted it to show he'd accidentally picked up one of the reserve papers for the shoji. Acknowledging the problem, Sasuke groaned in frustration, "Why are we stuck doing this? Is this the village's idea of a joke?"

"Oh, come on, Sasuke-kun. I think this is great," Sakura chirped positively, standing up and checking out the piece she'd finished. She nodded her head approvingly once she saw all the framework was finally in place. "Yeah! I haven't had this much fun in ages. Plus, fixing these panels is good work and easy pay, so what are you complaining about?"

"You may be happy about this, but I'm not," Sasuke shot back before he glared at the paper stuck to his palm and ripped it off. This was seriously strong adhesive. He estimated it would be about a week till he would be able to get rid of all the crap sticking to him. "I need to get back into training so that I can become stronger. I don't want to get caught off guard on the field again like what happened on our last mission. We need to work more on our techniques and our skills if we're going to end up facing something like that again…"

So he was still worrying over them nearly losing a teammate on that last cluster-fuck? Points for consideration if nothing else.

Sakura looked across at the brooding teen with a suddenly more disheartened expression as she thought back to that ordeal as well.

She'd gotten directly involved in that conflict herself and, due to a lack of experience and confidence, had also received quite a beating from it. Because she'd done so poorly in that fight and had been unable to do anything as she watched one of her teammates nearly get killed by a Jonin, the kunoichi realized immediately after that that she needed to take her work as a kunoichi more seriously and, hence, had began rethinking how she approached her training. As a result, she was working even harder than ever with her team to get develop her skills and, in a surprising turn of events, she'd even cut her hair.

It got in the way. Simple as that.

After everything that had happened to the team and seeing the results of that particular trial, she wasn't surprised Sasuke wanted to train even harder to be able to handily dispatch foes of that caliber in the future. It was the ambition of a genius, or so she figured.

The boy may not have looked the part from his handsome and glaringly cool appeal in the beginning, but the Uchiha was surprisingly obsessive and incredibly competitive for his character. Sakura could understand this well if nothing else about him, since she'd been in competition with Ino for years for the raven haired teen's affections. It was depressing and annoying to know that, even with all her currying up, she hadn't made any progress into winning him over whatsoever.

The only one who ever really noticed her changes was Naruto. He was sweet and kind to her sure, but he was for all intents and purposes the absolute wrong target.

She didn't mind his honest and down-to-earth confident boosts though. They always, often came at the times she needed them most.

After a moment of watching the genius clean off his hands in the pan provided before going back to his work, Kakashi smiled from where he was sitting and nodded over to the pair. "Cheer up, Sasuke-kun." He saw the boy look back at him in an immediate response. "There'll be plenty of time later for you to work on your ninjutsu skills and fighting abilities, so don't worry too much about them. Let's just concentrate on getting some more experience on missions into your resumes and focus on practicing the physical aspects of your training afterwards."

They'd had a decent string of D-Rank missions involving stuff around the village and had finally settled into some harder work outside on a C-Rank mission. That wasn't a bad thing, and not surprising why the Jonin said that.

Sasuke blinked at his sensei momentarily before looking back down at the stuff he was working on. He sighed resolutely at the tone of voice Kakashi used to address him and went back to spreading sheets. I mean… how could he say no to that?

"Fine…" the Uchiha mumbled.

"No one here is expecting you to become powerful overnight. You're still young and you've got an incredibly long career ahead of you… all of you. Sure, the progress of strength and development varies from person to person, but a lot of these things still take time. Just try not to make it your entire life, otherwise you'll miss out on a lot of the other things that are important," Kakashi exclaimed, shaving more wood off of the stick he was holding before gesturing over to Naruto in the middle of the open room and his clones now wiping the windows of the glass sliding doors down. "Take a look at that guy over there. He's just as interested in improving his skills as both of you are, yet he's perfectly fine with the way things are in his life. He loves hanging out with you and he loves the work. He's basically killing two birds with one stone."

"What? The dobe?" Sasuke asked, looking up at the kid to see him scratching his head as he hammered some more nails in. "That guy was born abnormal. Of course he'd find stuff like this exciting." Apparently he said this loud enough for the blonde to hear him, upon which the jinchuriki turned around with a sour glare and gave him the middle finger. "Pft. Whatever. We're both in the same boat anyway."

"Hey, at least I'm getting better at doing things like this on these types of missions," Naruto said, pointing at himself and then at his clone on the other side of the open room, cleaning a glass door set in its place. "The proof is right there. I would have dropped that thing hours ago if I was-"

CRASH!

The sound of shattering glass interrupted him from his rant as the blonde and his team looked over at the startled clone in question, which was now looking down at the ground where the shoji door had fallen and broken on impact. After looking at the shards littering the deck for a few seconds, the copy then looked back up at the team staring in his direction and grinned sheepishly. He then quickly and wordlessly pulled up the cloth he had been using in his task and continued wiping the air as if a glass door was still standing in front of him.

Sakura snorted before beginning to laugh uproariously, whereas Kakashi breathed out a sigh of exhaustion as the original Naruto leaned over on his spot on the ground with a raincloud hanging over his head.

"I'll get a broom," Sasuke murmured, standing up and walking over to the other end of the building. As he passed the original he smirked down at his now desponded state, "What was that about doing better?"

"SHUT UP, TEME!" Naruto barked.

OOO

Meanwhile…

Back at Naruto's apartment, left to her own tools and devices, Isaribi sat quietly in the kitchen looking around at all the walls and ceilings around her quietly and… absentmindedly. Being new to the village and new to the apartment block, the girl had, for the better part of her stay in this place so far, found it rather difficult to get a hold of some stuff to do with her free time, mostly out of uncertainty.

In her few days adjusting to the ups and downs of the place, the girl had taken on some mild cleaning and cooking chores to fill in some of the gaps. Nothing big, but enough to kill the crushing silence she often felt while waiting for the other two people of the establishment to return. The purple haired girl always looked forward to seeing either of her two roommates step in through the front door, as they always returned with something new for her to do and always gave her some much needed company.

However, with Naruto away on an extended mission and Tayuya out for most of the morning today, this meant Isaribi had to contend with being on her own for a little while with not much to do. But as eventless as the alone period was, it certainly gave the girl plenty of time to think on some other, important things she had stewing about, such as the possibility of taking on more duties here at the apartment and rearranging some of the furniture. Seeing as how she was a new resident and all, she had to occupy herself with something constructive.

She wanted to be of use to both Naruto and Tayuya for taking care of her, and also wanted to help pay them back.

While figuring these problems out and coming up with a list of solutions, including possible employment to help pay for material goods, Isaribi had slowly become interested in a couple of the daily reading magazines Tayuya had left stacked up on the table nearby and took a peak at the top one. Flipping it open and slowly skimming through the pages, the diver then landed on a double-page spread of a gorgeous young woman in her twenties with long brown hair wearing a very revealing, flowery kimono with a red, green and yellow color design. The pink blend it was printed on added more color to the material as the woman lay across the two pages in an alluring pose, surrounded by sheets, with her mature, sharp eyes fixed on the camera with a seductive look in her eyes.

Isaribi traced the model's slender legs, waist, the dip in her toned midsection and her sizable chest with her thumb, feeling a slight twinge of jealousy in her perfect human form. The purple haired girl sighed and looked at the name of the person.

Misora Amaya.

Perfect skin. Curves to die for. Sapphire blue eyes. Isaribi couldn't help but feel a crushing sensation of envy fall over her as she looked the figure from head to toe again as the motionless person lay advertising the latest style of casual robes or… herself… to the public… whatever the article was for.

"Oh, isn't that the famous model?"

The new resident nearly jumped out of her skin and spun around in her chair, Isaribi's eyes landing on the window behind her to see Tayuya clambering over the open sill and looking a little bit worn. Smiling when she saw the alarmed diver looking back at her, the red head beamed before dropping to the hard floor and dusting her front down.

"Misora. Yeah. I've seen her picture in several places. Ino-piggy is obsessed with her dieting articles. If I remember correctly, she's supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the world, second only to Tsunade of the Sannin," the red head exclaimed, placing her hand on her shoulder and rolling it. "Any girl would kill to have her body and looks. They're killer."

Calming down, Isaribi turned back to the magazine and looked at the open details. When her eyes fell on the woman's measurements, another spark of jealousy struck her. "B98-W58-H88?" A sigh escaped her lips as Tayuya also peaked around her head at the photograph. "Some women just have it all made for them."

Tayuya smirked when she figure out why Isaribi was so downtrodden and nudged her in the arm. "Hey. Don't get so down. With enough work and a couple more years, I'll bet you'll be able to out photo-shoot that woman hands down."

Blinking, the diver looked up at the kunoichi as she strolled past in surprise, "R-Really?"

The musician gave a nod of confidence. "If you want to make it your mission to become the world's hottest babe, then pamper yourself up. Just… try not to overdo it. A lot of makeup and too much dieting can actually do more harm to you than good." She then poked herself in the cheek with a smirk. "I'm more of an all-natural kind of girl. I never touch the stuff, so… I'm not sure whether my advice is really good or not… just… trust your instincts." Stretching out, the musician then exited into the corridor. "Well, I had a good day and I got paid. I'm gonna grab my basket and head down to the hot springs for a nice soak. Feel free to come along if you want."

Watching Tayuya disappear and sitting silently for a moment, Isaribi looked between both herself and the gorgeous woman on the magazine spread. Picking at her blue robe thoughtfully, the diver took a few seconds to consider her own appearance and looks before figuring she might get a better idea on improving her image sticking with the red head for some quality girl-time.

So, picking herself up out of the chair, Isaribi scampered off to go fetch her own washing basket.

A dip in the hot springs would probably do her some good. It was a damn sight better than stewing here in the apartment.

XXX

Two weeks later…

Things shifted paces quickly for Team 7 after their first successful C-Rank mission. They eventually moved off of monotonous work and into things that were more diverse and allowed them to be more active during their assignments. Instead of walking dogs, finding cats, picking up dog crap, helping to move stuff and fixing fences, they started doing more sundry activities that involved farming, out of village delivery services and cooperation. One of the next missions on the list eventually saw Team 7 joining up with a couple of the other teams on a group C-Ranked level assignment to help with a mass harvest.

Hopefully it would remain as one that wouldn't suddenly spiral into some drastic, over the top B-Rank conflict like it did on squad Kakashi's courier mission.

The farmers who had previously been assigned to work the day were off in another field to help with the gathering there, so this left the teams in the wheat and berry fields on the west side. Scythes and cutters in hand with baskets on their backs, the entirety of Team 7 lined up under the supervision of their sensei and began cutting swaths through the overgrown grass to fill their carriers. Since they were dealing with an entire hillside, this job guaranteed a full day of hard labor. At first it started off easy with the empty baskets, Sasuke and Sakura quickly finding a rhythm and sticking to it, until the weight of their baggage started to steadily increase the more field they sliced down and the more bunches they were able to gather.

They actually started creating bundles with the massive amount of bails they got through, and had to stop for a break every so often.

The only person really getting into the swing of this was Naruto, who was exerting boundless energy as always. The boy just attacked the grass with vigor behind each of his swings and went ahead of his team, until Kakashi stepped in to gently instruct him to slow down and allow the others to keep pace with him for an even shaving of the crop. "Go easy on the grass, Naruto. It's not an opponent. Focus on cutting it right rather than cutting it quickly; that way the wheat will be able to grow properly for the next harvest."

The blonde, his goggles pulled up and his jacket wrapped around his waist, grinned and saluted affirmatively, "Yes sir!" He then went back to work, going at a more labored pace but making sure to cut every handful carefully with each swing.

In the next field across from theirs, Team 9 was also hard at work with Genma standing nearby counting baskets while looking on as Kaede, Tayuya, and Shiho continued picking berries out of the bushes in the rows they were assigned. With gloves and aprons pulled over them, the trio made excellent use of their dispersal to tackle one tree at a time, pausing for the occasional check of their stock before going back to it with even more intent than before. Of course, there were one or two pauses involved in the squad's momentum when Kaede would suddenly stop in mid-action to delight in the subtle aroma of the berries and to roll the ones he managed to pick between his fingers in awe.

The guy was just weird that way.

"Ahh, such lavish fruits. What marvelous texture and seamless perfection. To think that such a small ball of nectar would house the very seeds of love and the building blocks of life," Kaede exclaimed in a very posh tone of voice while he sniffed the items in his hands, "The roundedness, the taste of subtle shell, the energy being nursed within, and the love that went into helping this berry grow; this truly is a gift given to us from heaven herself."

Tayuya looked up at him from her bush and stared at him oddly, "Dude, what the hell have you been smoking?"

Kaede smiled and pointed at the fruit in his hand, "Just the fragrance of nature, Tayuya-san."

The girl shook her head while Shiho, over on her side, stood up from her patch and wiped her brow, which had been stained from sweat drawn forth from the sun. "Well, could you serenade with nature a little bit quieter, please? You're kind of distracting me." The musician reached back down to grab another berry, but then paused and pointed between the two in front of her. "Hang on, which one was ripe again? The energy, no… the subtle or… wait, fuck! Shut the hell up, Kaede!"

Shiho giggled at Tayuya getting frustrated at her task while Genma chuckled in amusement, rolling the senbon between his lips around. "It's the blue ones, Tayuya. Any of the bigger ones will do," the team leader exclaimed.

The kunoichi nodded and quickly went back to her task, a blush on her face. That was humiliating.

After seeing his squad return to their duties, Genma looked across at Kakashi's group, where he could see the genius Sasuke sitting on the wall with his shirt off and drinking a bottle of water, Sakura swooning over him with a warm glow on her face and Naruto bundling up more wheat from his carrier beside them. The man with the needle in his mouth smirked at the pleasant atmosphere and, after gazing over the wall for a moment, met Kakashi's eye looking back over at him from his stack of goods. Both men nodded to each other in greeting, signaling that things were going well on their ends before turning to direct their respective groups.

Over in the orange groves, Team 10 was busy climbing ladders and picking fruits of their own. Wearing similar baskets on their shoulders, the youngsters gathered the oranges in great heaps before taking them over to the cart and dropping them in. The mass amounts they'd already accumulated were incredible, and it was safe to say they were holding their end up just fine.

Asuma smiled from his seat on the wagon as he watched Ino drop her latest batch in before looking up at the top of Choji's ladder, where he saw the boy peel back an orange and start eating it. While this had the Jonin shake his head at his student's irresistible appetite, the blonde haired girl climbing back up her ladder spotted him and pointed in his direction.

"Oi! Don't eat the oranges, Choji! We're supposed to be counting those!"

The boy looked back at her momentarily and then back down at the fruit. After several glances, he got tears in his eyes and gazed at his teammate all puppy-dog like, "B-But Ino…"

"No buts! We can eat later!" Ino shouted, shaking her head and continuing to climb her ladder. "Geez. You guys can be so annoying sometimes. Always messing around and DON'T YOU GO FALLING ASLEEP ON US AGAIN SHIKAMARU! GET UP YOU LAZY BUM!"

Seeing the boy lying underneath his tree had the girl's hair stand on end at how irritating her companions were being right now. It was like they were leaving her to do all the work for them while they were just goofing off, which she had long since become accustom to. Still, that didn't mean their actions didn't get her hair to bristle at times, and her exclamations were more than enough to put them back in their places, with the Nara letting out a tired yawn and standing back up.

"Man… how troublesome…"

At least things weren't as problem filled over at Team 8's end. With Kurenai standing up on her wagon with clipboard in hand, the woman watched her team intently move up and down the ladders positioned under the nearby trees, gathering apples and dumping them in the back for processing. Unlike their counterparts, it was a lot more easygoing with her team as Kiba was spearheading the group in terms of energy, and Shino and Hinata were right behind him.

The Hyuuga of course found her job very enjoyable, and was pleasantly humming a gentle tone to herself as she plucked apples out of the tree. She even went out of her way to lay them neatly in her basket before going down to deposit them so that they didn't bruise. Shino meanwhile looked as though he was operating on autopilot, always moving around like he was locked in the same loop of action as he had been from the beginning, which Kurenai had no problems with. This meant he did his work without a complaint or fuss.

The woman could see that she had a very diligent team under her wing, which brought a big smile to her face.

While he was pulling apples from the branch he was currently focused on, Kiba got quite a start when he pulled an apple down with a stick insect on it and Akamaru barked in alarm. The boy yelped in shock at the sheer size of it and shook his hand rapidly, "Gah! Get away, you!" It flew off before quickly landing on a nearby Shino, who was now glaring across at his teammate. Kiba quickly glared back, "What?"

"Please reframe from disturbing the residents, Kiba."

"Hey! He was the one trying to sneak a bite!" the Inuzuka replied while pointing at the insect resting on Shino's shoulder. "Bugs shouldn't be in here to begin with! All of this stock is for the villagers."

"Even the smallest of creatures in this world need to eat," Shino replied, allowing the bug to crawl onto his finger where it then sat. "Why I say this you ask, because everyone in the world requires sustenance to allow their bodies to grow."

"That's not the point. This is a crop meant for growing food for people. If bugs get into them, they'll either spoil the food or people will end up devouring them. What do you think will happen if a poor, unfortunate worm ends up inside one of these apples and is eaten by a person? What do you think will happen then?" Kiba asked with a smug grin forming on his face as he dropped his arm to rest on the ladder. "It's not going to end well for the bug or the person, is it?"

Shino remained silent for a moment before allowing his head to lower. Though his expression remained unreadable, you could tell from his action that he was clearly stressing over the issue. Upon giving the stick insect on his finger a brief moment of consideration, he then allowed it to fly free and formed a hand seal. "You have a point. I shall fix that." He then held out his hand. "Hijutsu: Mushiyose!" (Secret Technique: Insect Gathering)

All of a sudden, the air suddenly became filled with thousands upon thousands of bugs flying out from their hiding places in the trees to gather around Shino on his command. The mass amounts of critters literally clogged the air in what could have easily been mistaken for a cloud of smoke, with the flock quickly converging and swarming in to envelop Kiba and Hinata, both of whom looked up in shock at the forest worth of insects coming towards them. Their shrieks of terror quickly echoed across the farmlands.

"GAAAAAHHH! STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU IDIOT?!"

"Sh-SHINO-KUN! EEEEEKK!"

Teamwork…

What a concept…

XXX

One week later…

It was early morning, and Naruto and Tayuya were still sleeping off from several long days of back-to-back missions and training. Their exhaustion from the days beforehand was clearly evident, as neither of them was bothered in the slightest by the bright sun rising over the hills and peaking through the drapes, or the sounds of the villagers bustling outside. Hell, the only signs of life either of them gave in this moment of tranquility were Naruto scrunching his nose up slightly and Tayuya murmuring and brushing away at her cheek like a kitten. Other than those movements, the pair continued to doze uninterrupted wherever they were lying.

However, after another half an hour into the morning and as time continued to tick by, Naruto slowly began to stir from his slumber from an odd feeling that had suddenly overcome him. Blinking away the spots from the sunlight blasting him in the face, the drowsy teen looked up thoughtfully as he attempted to figure out what this sensation was.

"Why does my chest feel heavy all of a sudden?"

Confused, he looked down, and quickly discovered the source of the problem.

Lying on top of him, sharing the same mattress he was using, not only did he see Tayuya fast asleep in her usual oversized t-shirt and underwear with her wild hair all over the place, but he also saw Isaribi sleeping in her underwear with a night robe over that. Both girls were lying on either side of him on top of his chest, both of them gripping a part of his white shirt and were, in a few words, sleeping in peace.

Blinking in surprise, Naruto looked from one girl to the other and rested his head back, staring blankly at his ceiling. "Is this a dream? Yeah… it has to be." No way were both girls sleeping on top of him? That was absurd.

However, after several moments of relaxed breathing, pinching himself in the cheek to wake himself up and looking back down to see if they were still there, the boy then realized that this was no dream at all. Nope. This was real. Both Tayuya and Isaribi were sleeping with him on the same mattress in the middle of the room surrounded by pillows.

Bewildered at the scenario, Naruto slowly came to terms with the fact that he was indeed lying with both girls and, after considering things for a second time more carefully, shrugged off his current scenario. As strange as it was, at least they were sleeping pleasantly and weren't making a fuss over anything. Smiling gently, he traced Tayuya's cheek and brushed the hair out of her face with his finger and did the same to the equally serene Isaribi.

After which he laid his head back and dozed off again.

Unknown to him, both girls suddenly opened their eyes and looked towards him. Smiling sweetly, they looked across at one another to see the other girl lying next to them. Upon sizing the other one up and getting a feel for the mood, they chose not to argue over the spots they'd secured and went back to sleeping as well.

Neither of them had the energy to fight over who got to snuggle up with Naruto-kun and neither of them really cared.

Things were great the way they were.

XXX

Three weeks later…

Sakura was scratching her head in puzzlement as she looked across the floor of books she had laid out in front of her. While she read and ran her fingers over the variety of texts and instructions provided for her, she also spared a moment to make herself a little more comfortable as she sat under the familiar tree on the edge of the Third Training Ground, the site of squad seven's current exercise session.

Her entire team had been taken out here by their instructor that morning to get some heavily desired training in, and while Sakura had taken a break from the physical workouts to get in touch with some of the jutsu she'd been practicing since returning from their last mission, Kakashi was having some more one on one time with Sasuke to improve some of his more unused combinations. As you would expect from that, the Uchiha was taking quite a beating trying to fend off his physically superior foe but, just like Naruto, he was stubbornly holding firm against every assault that came his way. These two currently inhabited a different corner of the field.

The kunoichi on the other hand was stranded on her end trying to get down all the theoretical aspects of the new jutsu she wanted to concoct, while at the same time trying to come up with some creative ways of executing it that didn't require too much effort.

As for Naruto, the boy was out in the open field practicing combinations with his new Hien technique, getting his clones to attack him from all sides to help him in practicing to take multiple opponents down. He definitely looked like he was having a ball by the way he was decimating his doppelgangers one after the other. They attacked him from all sides as he maneuvered around, taking them down with blasts of wind up high until one smart bugger tried to go low, which ended up getting swiftly pummeled into submission, upon which it then dispelled.

It was pretty routine right now as far as Team 7 was concerned, leaving each member plenty of space to get their specialty techniques down pat and their physical conditioning up to speed.

After skimming over the scroll provided for her, Sakura smiled at finally reaching its end and gave a firm nod before jumping to her feet. Stretching her arms and fingers out, she then formed a tight hand seal and focused her energy. "Okay. Let's give this a try." With chakra quickly gathering around her chest, the girl then inhaled and took aim at the airspace in front of her.

Moment of truth.

"Dokugiri!" (Poison Mist) the kunoichi thought before exhaling with her mouth wide open, expelling a thick, purple cloud of poisonous fumes from her lungs like flames gushing out of a vent.

The cloud that emerged from the pinkette instantly spread across the field and filled the air with a deadly, seemingly unbreakable wall of fumes. When she finished streaming the attack, feeding it with her specially mixed chakra, the kunoichi grinned triumphantly at her success. But her smile quickly faded when she suddenly saw the cloud get caught on the wind and blow in Naruto's general direction.

The boy sparring with his clones spotted the plume of dangerous gas drifting towards him before his clones did. Understandably, Naruto freaked the fuck out at the sight of the purple mist drifting in his direction and upon disengaging from his numerous opponents, leapt straight into the air while his copies turned around just in time to get a face full of poison cloud.

"GAAAAHHHHH!" The toxic gas enveloped the bunch of doppelgangers within seconds before passing over the lake, where it eventually dispelled.

Distracted from their sparring, Kakashi and Sasuke looked across to see what all the fuss was about, where they quickly spotted a panicking Sakura rushing over to a team of twitching Naruto shadow clones laying all across the field.

"Oh no! Naruto! Are you alright?! I'm so sorry!" the girl shouted spastically while looking down at each of the paralyzed copies sprawled out on the grass. They had froth coming out of their mouths and owlish expressions in play. Yeah. They were definitely not alright. The kunoichi quickly pulled a vial of blue liquid out from her pocket. "Here! I've got an antidote. Where's the real one?"

"Geez, Sakura-chan!" The girl jumped with a start and turned around at the sound of the familiar voice to see the blonde she had been worrying about standing on top of the middle training post nearby, wiping sweat from his brow, "A little warning next time before you decide to use a jutsu like that close by. I nearly got wiped out by it."

Sakura stared momentarily before blushing and rubbing the back of her head sheepishly. "R-Right. Sorry." After apologizing, she looked over her shoulder to see the now disabled clones dispel one after another as unconsciousness overtook them, leaving the original with quite an experience when the collective memories bounced off of him simultaneously.

The jinchuriki shivered involuntarily. "Damn. That's some real nasty stuff," Naruto exclaimed while dropping down from the stump he was perched upon. "What the heck did you put into that cloud? My clones all went numb for a second before they all passed out." His teammate turned to face him when he stopped in front of her.

"I incorporated a toxic lily into the formula I was able to work out from the scrolls I found in the archive library. They've got some pretty cool stuff in them; especially that last one. The mist I just used causes instant paralysis by attacking the body's nervous system before knocking the victim out cold. It's not meant to kill people, just to stun them long enough so that they can be taken out when they're asleep," Sakura explained with a smile, showing the blonde the vial she was carrying before putting it away. "I've got an antidote in case anyone gets hit by it, so don't worry about rolling over and dying in case you breathe in some of the stuff."

Naruto gave her a deadpanned look. "Getting gassed and falling over from it isn't really something I should not be worrying about. In fact, it's something I want to actively avoid happening to me at all costs."

Sakura grinned at him, "But it's got some kick to it, doesn't it?"

The blonde grinned nervously at her from the shadow that suddenly crossed her devious gaze. "Man… maybe I shouldn't have shown you all of those poisonous plants when I offered to help you out with your training. You're getting into some really scary stuff."

His teammate stuck her tongue out. "Well boo. Learning this stuff is fun, and I really want to become strong enough so that I can fight alongside you guys properly next time rather than just stand somewhere in the background doing nothing. I felt really useless on our last mission watching you nearly get killed. I don't want something like that happening again where I couldn't do anything to save you or help Sasuke-kun."

It was this new determination to do better that brought a smile to Naruto's face.

The boy was really moved by what she had to say and respected her resolve to become stronger so that she could fight with the rest of her team, rather than come off as a burden with unrefined skills. While he didn't think his teammate was useless, since he didn't want to think so poorly of other people, he still believed there was always room for improvement. Sakura saw that too and acknowledged it openly. This was a big change from what her original viewpoint was at the beginning, where she shied away from anything difficult and didn't take her training as seriously.

Now, Naruto could see Sakura was changing. She'd even cut her hair so that it was above her shoulders. That was a really interesting change, since the jinchuriki always believed Sakura was really fond of her hair. However, the girl had learned that all it did was hang behind her uselessly and get in the way while she was fighting, and that was not a bad route of thinking to take.

She was growing.

"Aw, don't say that, Sakura-chan," Naruto beamed at her, deciding to pick up where she left off. "You do plenty of stuff for the team."

Appreciating his vote of confidence in her, the kunoichi jabbed him gratefully in the arm with a warm smile. "You're sweet." Upon seeing him grin, she then smirked mischievously and leaned forward. "Still, I also want to stop you and Sasuke-kun from getting into those stupid fights of yours, so you'd better watch yourselves otherwise I'll drug your lunches with something really humiliating."

While the kunoichi went on about how she was finally learning some exciting new moves that she'll be able to use out in the field and Naruto shivered at how scary she was coming off from training herself in such deadly arts, Kakashi gave a pleasant eye-smile. From his spot, the Jonin could see and hear his team's enthusiasm as clear as day and how his squad's kunoichi was marching toward an area she could specialize and take pride in. Sasuke also looked on curiously across from his teacher, beaten and kneeling on the ground exhaustedly, but nevertheless allowing a smirk to form on his face when he too managed to catch on to the words being thrown between his companions.

This whole team thing was really coming along smoothly and a lot of changes had already taken place since their close encounter with those three assassins on their last mission. Not only were they starting to get more serious about their responsibilities as a shinobi, but their eyes were opened to how tough the world out there really was.

Speaking of which.

When Kakashi looked around to see if Sasuke was ready to go another round, he blinked in surprise when he saw the genius look back up through his hand and, while wiping sweat from his face, flashed the man his eyes. However, instead of seeing the usual black as night irises he was normally used to spotting, the Jonin found himself staring into a pair of red eyes with two tomoes spinning in them.

As if responding to the powerful foe standing before him as well as to the excitement hanging in the air, Sasuke was able draw out his biggest trump card, which had been stuck up his sleeve up until now.

"Well…" the Uchiha exclaimed with a grin, "Come on then. There's no way I'm going to let them go ahead and take all the glory for themselves. You've still got me to worry about, sensei."

Blinking in surprise, Kakashi then gave another eye smile after getting a good look at the two tomoes sitting in both of the eyes of his student. "It looks like I can finally start teaching you something new, Sasuke-kun."

This day just got a little more interesting.

XXX

The next day…

"Oh… so tall, dark and emo finally got his Sharingan?" Tayuya asked in surprise after seeing Naruto pay for their ice-cream and turn back to them.

"Yep," Naruto exclaimed, holding his chosen flavor up and grinning, "He was getting his ass kicked by Kakashi-sensei for the hundredth time and it activated on its own. Can you believe that?"

"Maybe he was so determined to get stronger and to beat his teacher he willed his bloodline ability to come out," Tayuya suggested with a shrug, smiling as she looped her arm around Naruto's when he finally joined her. Together with their desserts in hand, the pair then began making their way down the road on for their next destination through the busy streets of Konoha. "I can't blame him. Anyone with powerful enough ambition will definitely want to climb the ladder as fast as they can. Besides, he was bound to activate his Sharingan sooner or later if his reputation as a genius holds any merit."

"Yeah. Teme is really set on becoming a powerful shinobi. But his reasons for becoming strong are completely different to you and I," Naruto exclaimed, gesturing to her. "I think you know what I'm talking about."

"Revenge… right?" Tayuya answered, "Against the asshole who killed his clan."

"Yep. I mean… I can understand why he would want to get strong to do that, because I've felt the same things he's felt; hatred, loathing, anger, vengeance… it's so easy. So quick. At one point I just wanted to hurt everyone who hated me, bullied me and made me an outcast for all those years… even make them pay. It scared me that I was actually thinking stuff like that and it still scares me to think about it, which is why I know I will never cross that line," Naruto stated, seeing the red head smile across at him.

The kunoichi bumped her head against his shoulder. "I've been in the same place too. Don't forget that."

"How can I?" Naruto chuckled, remembering the stories Tayuya had told him. "But… everyone has a different reason to become the best they can be, whether good or bad. Do you become a shinobi of justice; upholding your codes of honor and fighting for the good of… well… good? Do you take all the bloodshed on your own shoulders as a dark lone wolf and become the hero that your village deserves? Or do you simply walk around being an arrogant prick in your dark ensemble of clothing like the world's most generic douche bag?"

Tayuya paused on that last one for a moment before giving Naruto an amused smirk, "Did you just call Sasuke a pansy?"

Naruto nodded proudly, "Yes I did."

"Are you worried about him?" Tayuya asked.

"Hm? About what?"

"The Sharingan is said to be one of the strongest kekkei genkai in the world. It grants the user enhanced reflexes, increases their accuracy and range several times over without the need for hard training, see chakra, allows them to copy jutsu right down to the last seal and execute them without practice, and gives the user a much wider range in both ninjutsu and genjutsu," Tayuya continued, listing the array of abilities the famed Uchiha eyes gave their wielders. She then blinked when she went over what she just said and looked blankly across at her boyfriend. "I call hax on that by the way."

Naruto chuckled, "So it makes your eyesight better? Big whoop. It takes more than a good pair of eyes to be a ninja." The blonde pointed across at the kunoichi. "You can beat any Sharingan user with both arms and pupils tied behind your back. Just keep them shut and fight smart."

Tayuya giggled and rolled her eyes, "Well, to stop them casting genjutsu on me, yeah. But there are only two Uchiha left out there in the world to worry about, plus your teacher Kakashi. He's got a Sharingan too."

"Of course. What do you think we've been training even harder for?" Naruto replied, pointing between them. "The skills you and I are working on right now will make all doejutsu obsolete. Your genjutsu surpasses any other I've ever seen and you can execute them without anybody knowing. Hell, you can slap a doejutsu user in the face and they wouldn't even know they're stuck in a genjutsu."

"I'm guessing you're still sore about me slapping you those dozens of times when you were training to break my techniques?" Tayuya exclaimed through a shit-eating smile.

"You and I both know that you were enjoying that wa~ay too much," Naruto replied while pointing accusingly at his girlfriend as they dodged traffic. "I demand a hand recount." When Tayuya cheekily responded by leaning up and kissing him on the cheek, the boy paused momentarily and grinned. "Apology accepted."

"No problem," Tayuya replied happily, leaning over and taking a nibble of his ice-cream. Enjoying the taste of chocolate, the girl beamed when she glanced up at the boy to see his surprised expression staring back at her, only to have it morph into a warm glow. She then held up her treat, "Here."

Playing on instinct, Naruto immediately took her up on her offer and leaned in to take a bite out of her ice cream. He ignored the brain-freeze that came with it as he savored the flavor before swallowing, "Raspberry… not bad."

As they continued walking along, arms linked together and enjoying their ice-cream desserts, Naruto suddenly stopped when he felt something off on the wind hitting the back of his neck and turned around. His sudden stoppage also had Tayuya cart to a halt beside him, the kunoichi glancing over their shoulders to see exactly what had interrupted their walk.

"What's up? You sense something?"

"Yeah…" Naruto murmured, eyes panning the streets and ignoring the common folk walking around, "A prickly feeling on the back of my neck. It's faint, but I think somebody is following us." Strange. He'd been getting that feeling an awful lot lately, only it was much stronger and a lot more palpable compared to a few months back. Nowadays he had a lot more clarity when scanning his surroundings, so it was a lot easier for him to pick out particular individuals in a crowd.

It was also funny because he swore he'd felt this familiar aura before.

After several minutes of looking around and nothing, Naruto frowned and turned back around, along with Tayuya who was still a little wary. "Must have been my imagination."

Shrugging it off, the pair continued on walking, engrossing themselves in conversation once more while at the same time completely unaware of the shadow hiding in the alleyway several meters back. As they strolled on down the road, the familiar face of Hinata Hyuuga peered around the corner and, still concealing much of herself, stared with a fond smile after the pair, particularly the blonde haired one.

"Naruto-kun…"

The shadow went on unnoticed as Naruto and Tayuya proceeded on with their date.

The pair found a lot of enjoyment in the other's company as they ventured through the local park before deciding to head on over to the cinemas. There was a new movie starring Yukie Fujikaze out, a fantasy story about a female warrior who meets a band of explorers searching for a long lost treasure, in which they then enlist her to join them on their quest, one that spirals into a battle between good and evil. It had an interesting premise to it and from the trailers they'd seen, it seemed like the perfect highlight for their date today.

As they stood in line outside the booth talking about one of the other movies they'd seen the star actress in, the pair were then caught by surprise when they suddenly saw Team 10 walk out of the cinema.

When the two groups spotted each other, they stopped.

"Oh… hi guys," Naruto exclaimed cheerfully, completely oblivious to the fact that Tayuya was still attached to his arm.

Staring at the intertwined pair momentarily, Shikamaru opened up with his usual, lazy greeting. "Hey."

"What are you two love birds doing?" Choji asked curiously, looking at them curiously. "Getting into more trouble?"

A little bit confused at the sight of Tayuya's arms wrapped around Naruto's, the pale-haired Yamanaka of the team fixed her attention squarely on the teens in inquiry, "Are you guys waiting for someone together? Why are you holding each other's arms like that?" Surely they weren't going into the movies on their own, as in, by themselves, as a couple. That would imply they were on…

Looking at one another, Naruto and Tayuya took a moment to ponder on it for a moment before they stared blankly back at the three and shrugged.

"We're on a date," the jinchuriki said.

"Seeing a movie together," Tayuya grinned, hugging the blonde's arm a little bit tighter, "Nothing big. Something simple."

Silence prevailed as Team 10 stared at their two fellow Genin. From the looks on their faces, the pair could see Ino's jaw had dropped into a gawking stare, and Choji and Shikamaru were also visibly brushing that fine line between deadpanned and stunned. However, after several moments of nothing but the drone of the villagers around them dominating the airspace, Asuma's group was eventually able to process what the pair had said to them and soon responded however they thought was within reason for the time.

Shikamaru went back to looking bored again and shrugged, "Cool."

Choji beamed brightly at the pair and nodded to each of them, "Hope you guys have fun."

"You two are on a date?!" Ino exclaimed loudly, startling some of the nearby villagers at the volume in her voice. "So… you guys are like… boyfriend and girlfriend now?" It was… inconceivable.

Like many of the other girls from their year level, she just couldn't fathom the idea of Naruto ever having a girlfriend or going on a date with any girl. It just… wasn't him. It didn't seem like him.

That, or she just didn't see the appeal behind him.

"Well… yeah," Tayuya replied, giving the blonde haired kunoichi an odd look. "What else would we be? Co-workers? Acquaintances? We live in the same apartment. Everyone knows that."

Seeing Ino was still in a state of shock and hearing a bunch of incoherent words start to come out of her mouth, Shikamaru rolled his eyes and gestured Choji to help her. The Akimichi did as instructed and, wrapping an arm around the stammering girl, slowly began pulling her away from the cinema and down the road. After watching his stumped comrade escorted out of the vicinity, the Nara turned back to the pair standing in line and acknowledged them both respectively.

"As troublesome as I think this whole thing is, I'd still like to say good going to both of you."

"Thanks Shikamaru," Naruto replied, even though his friend had passed on his best wishes to them in the most ass way possible.

Scratching the back of his head, Shikamaru then turned heel and followed after his other teammates, at the same time waving over his shoulder. "Enjoy the movie."

With their brief encounter with one of the other squads over, Naruto and Tayuya proceeded into the theater without a fuss. After purchasing their tickets, the jinchuriki then led them through the lobby, bought them some snacks from the bar, and then proceeded over to the cinema to find their seats. Getting comfortable in the middle row, the two kicked their feet up on the seats in front of them and waited before the big screen for the movie to start.

The first half hour into the movie after that proceeded on in peace and intrigue. The pair watched as the star actress Yukie immersed herself into her role as the main character, and pulled them and the rest of the audience into her world. While they were watching, Tayuya decided to get a little bit cheeky and started to toss popcorn at Naruto. Taking her up on that challenge, the boy began trying to catch them in his mouth, and ended up with a good score in the end before doing the same with her.

Eventually the restlessness between them settled into quiet time again and, laying her head against the jinchuriki's shoulder and leaning back with him, Tayuya once more engrossed herself into the film and her time with Naruto.

Unfortunately the enjoyment of that moment was not to last, when suddenly they heard hushed whispering in the row directly behind them, which had Naruto and Tayuya frown distastefully when they caught wind of the stuff being said.

"Not here. There are other people around."

"Hey, you did it to me and I didn't complain."

"That's because you let me do it to you, you tease." The woman then gave a slight squeak and playfully slapped the man she was with in the chest. "Behave yourself." Their lecherous giggles filled the air, causing tick marks to form on both Naruto and Tayuya.

When the hushed commotion continued for another minute or so, with the contents of what the two 'children' behind them were throwing at each other started to get a little bit more adult, the two teens decided they'd had enough and turned around to give them a piece of their mind.

"Could you two please keep it down," Tayuya hissed.

"We're trying to watch the mo-" Naruto was about to lead off, until both teens stopped when they saw who it was they were addressing.

It was funny how small the world was and it was also equally funny if not funnier to see two sets of startled deer expressions on two different pairs. What were the chances of Naruto and Tayuya turning around and finding themselves sharing the same cinema with Asuma and Kurenai, the latter of which was saddled up close to the bearded Jonin, with the former having his arm draped over her shoulders and his other hand…

Well…

Let's just say there were more appropriate places to put your hand on your partner in public…

Tayuya blinked, "Uhh… hi… Kurenai-sensei…"

"Asuma-sensei," Naruto finished with a courteous nod.

Frozen for a moment, the two team leaders nodded back.

"Naruto," Asuma exclaimed.

"Tayuya," Kurenai followed up.

For a minute after that the two groups said nothing. Upon processing the situation a little bit more thoroughly and realizing who exactly was sitting in the row in front of them, Kurenai then remembered her current state of appearance and looked down. After which she then looked back up at Asuma to see him still staring blankly at the teenagers. "Hand…"

"Right," the other Jonin exclaimed, removing his hand from where it was and leaning back in his seat.

The two adults cleared their throats and went back to watching the movie like… adults. The two kids also returned to watching the film, blinking away the shock that they were not only in the presence of two of the other squad instructors, but they had also just watched one of them get to second base with the other, with the first base having probably been somewhere in the middle of that.

It was awkward for a while, but after a reasonable amount of time had passed the young couple decided to suppress what they had just witnessed and returned to enjoying their date.

Still… who knew that Asuma and Kurenai were actually a couple?

…

…

…

XXX

Two weeks later…

"Help! I'm trapped!"

"God damn it, Naruto! Again?" Sakura shouted as she stormed towards the source of the noise. "This is the third time this week! Why do you suck at life so much?"

"Not at life! Just everything involving rudimentary instruction! Now get me out of here!" the panicking boy yelled back.

"Alright! Alright! Hold your horses!" the kunoichi replied, rolling up her metaphorical sleeves before trying to pull the door that had shut on him open. Today's mission involved Team 7 helping a grocer outside of the hidden village with transporting his stocks and protecting his convoy from bandits, and had requested a strong team of Genin to help with his shipments. Unfortunately, before any of the heavy lifting of the goods could even begin they needed to get the stuff out of storage, but that could only be possible if the door was open.

The door had been open before. Yes. It was a simple process; grab and lift. It was one of those old, heavy gates with iron bolts that went up and down, and was designed to withstand a direct impact from a large transport. However, while the youngsters managed to jar it and bring the cart around to start loading it up, Naruto had somehow knocked the fixture out of place rolling a barrel across the floor and locked himself inside.

Now he was trapped, in the dark, surrounded by total oblivion and boxes of sealed, exotic fruits.

If this wasn't a C-Ranked mission they would have had something to laugh about, but time was pressing and they needed to get moving.

"W-What the hell?" Sakura growled, trying to lift the damn gate as it refused to budge. "We opened this easily just a few minutes ago, what's going on?"

Sasuke approached her from the cart with his hands on his hips and an eyebrow arced. After hitching the wagon to the ox and waiting several minutes for his teammates to begin loading, he then decided to come around to see what the problem was. "What's taking you guys so long?"

"The door shut by itself and now it's stuck!" the kunoichi grunted, yanking on the handle while not trying to throw her back. "Naruto's trapped inside and there's no way out of there. Damn it! Give me a hand here, would you?"

Shaking off the frustration she spoke toward him with, the Uchiha approached and helped try to pull the barricade open, only to get the same response from the inanimate gate as Sakura did. Surprised, the raven haired Genin tried again and again with both hands in time with the kunoichi, falling into bewilderment when he found his actions yielded zero results. "What the heck? What's wrong with this thing?"

"That's what I'd like to know!"

"Hey! What are you guys doing out there?!" Naruto shouted from inside, at the same time knocking on the barrier. "Come on! Stop fooling around! Get me out of here!"

"We're trying, dobe!" Sasuke shouted back, nudging the kunoichi and nodding to her when she looked at him. "On three!"

"Okay!"

"One, two… threeee!" the genius growled before both of them put everything they had in it. After several moments and nothing, the pair released their grips from the handle and blew on the blisters that had formed from the effort. "Shit." Shaking his hands out, Sasuke then glared at the door again. "I hate it when stuff like this happens. Why does this only happen to you, you idiot!"

"I don't know! Don't ask me!"

As the kids tried figuring out the problem with the gate and Naruto kept hilariously screaming hysterics from inside at being cooped up in the dark, their sensei sitting on top of the carrier several meters away sighed and shook his head at their antics. He returned to his familiar orange book and began flipping through the pages once again.

"They'll figure it out. This is a C-Rank mission. How hard can it be?"

And the door didn't budge for ten minutes…

Yep. Welcome to the trials and tribulations of the world of shinobi.

XXX

Four weeks later…

Just as the sky from the night before was beginning to light up in wake of the approaching sun, Naruto was suddenly woken from his sleep by the most terrifying sound he'd ever heard in his entire life…

"NARUTO-KUN! YOU MUST JOIN US FOR A MOST YOUTHFUL TRAINING SESSION WITH ME AND MY TEAM! IT WILL BE GLORIOUS!"

The ninja in question suddenly sat, bolt upright from his bed with a start. His blanket partially covering his naked torso, Naruto gazed groggily through the dull atmosphere of his room towards the nearest wall and blinked himself out of his stupor. He then looked in the direction of where he presumably believed the entrance to his apartment was as the noise from outside continued filtering in.

"Geezus! Keep it down, Lee," a harsh hiss came from the other familiar voice of Tenten, obviously in response to her teammate's more than grandiose yelling. "You'll wake everyone up."

"It's four o'clock in the morning and you're being so noisy. Show some consideration towards his neighbors," Neji's voice also spoke up.

"But Neji-kun, what if Naruto-kun cannot hear the exuberance of my spirited knocking? What if he is in a deep and un-youthful sleep, and is unable to wake up for several more hours and misses us completely?"

"Well, then, that means he's just very, very tired," Tenten replied quickly, sounding like she had her hands placed on her hips as she rebuked her teammate. "Honestly, if anyone is able to sleep through your exclamations they must be either dead or in a drug-induced coma."

"…"

"…"

"…"

"…"

"NARUTO-KUN!"

"God damn it, Lee! If you don't calm down right now I will have Neji juken you!" Tenten shouted at him again.

Upon hearing more shouting from outside, Naruto looked down over the side of his bed to see Tayuya crawl out from under a pile of pillows and blankets. After dropping onto the futons lying on the bedroom ground, the girl blinked as she glared towards the door of their room. "Naruto, what the hell is that?" It sounded like someone screaming in agony… minus the agony.

On the other side of the room from one of the open closets with pillows, blankets and sheets spewing out of it, a nesting Isaribi came out looking just as groggy. She had recently made a den for herself on her part of the room and would often sleep there if not on the center mattress with Naruto. Blinking away the sand in her eyes, the girl also looked towards the bedroom door oddly. "Yeah… what is that?"

Naruto groaned as he slowly rolled out of bed, pulling up his briefs that had slipped a bit when he did, "My alarm clock… apparently…"

"Well then, tell it to shut the fuck up, I'm trying to sleep," Tayuya grumbled, her voice muffled by her pillow when she dropped her head back down on top of it. She was sleeping in a room that was covered in futons, blankets and hundreds of pillows, so there was no way she was getting up. The state of her frazzled hair also said she was in no mood for visitors.

"I have an appointment with the doctors today. Tell them to come back later," Isaribi murmured, grabbing another blanket and rolling her body up inside of it.

Naruto groaned as he stumbled his way to his front door, making sure to watch his path as he stepped into the corridor and unbolted the locks. He then swung it open to meet the cool morning air and shivered, paying it little mind when he came face to face with all three members of Team Gai. At first he saw their expressions blink with surprise at seeing him open the door, moments later until their eyes ventured downwards and looked at his current state of dress. Tenten blushed brightly, Lee wasn't at all fazed by the blonde's appearance mostly due to his own complex and Neji looked away while rolling his eyes.

"Oh, good lord," the glass-eyed teen groaned.

Naruto blinked as he glanced at each of their faces, "What are you guys doing here?"

Lee, seizing up a little, gave the blonde a firm gaze and saluted, "YOSH! Naruto-kun! We have come to ask you if you would like to join us on the training fields today!"

"Training fields?"

"Y-Yes," Tenten squeaked, finally deciding to speak up after getting a good eye-balling of the boy's underwear clad form. She cleared her throat before choosing to look him in the eyes, but was unable to get rid of the red in her face in the process. "Lee is dead set on sparring with you and, since Gai-sensei is away at an important meeting with the rest of the Jonin captains today, we decided to come around to your place to see if you were available."

"It didn't take long to find you," Neji informed, looking across at the teen after composing himself. "We just asked around and all of the shopkeepers pointed us in this direction."

"You live quite close to the outskirts, Naruto-kun! It's very convenient!" Lee also pointed with a smile. "Now you can come with us to the training areas for a good morning workout to reinvigorate your flames of youth!"

"That's if he wants to, Lee," Tenten said back, giving her teammate a firm gaze to settle his booming vocal chorus before turning to the jinchuriki again. Leaning back when she saw Naruto beam towards them with a livelier expression, the girl gave a nervous smile. "So? Are you… interested?"

After looking between them several times, Naruto grinned and gave an enthusiastic nod. "Sure! I'd love to hang out with you guys. Kakashi-sensei is also off for the day, so I've got plenty of free time on me. Are you guys heading down there right now?"

"Yep," Tenten said with a smile.

"Great!"

"Okay, I can't take it anymore, can you PLEASE put on some pants," Neji suddenly spoke up with a dismayed expression in play. His exclamation quickly had everyone return to the fact that the blonde was still in his underwear. "Honestly, don't you have any shame?"

"What?" Naruto asked, looking down at his lower half before glancing back up with a shrug. "What's wrong with the way I'm dressed? I'm perfectly fine the way I am. Plus it's comfortable."

"That's not the point."

"Naruto, what's going on out here? Who are you talking to?" a tired voice suddenly reverberated from inside the house, shortly after which the jinchuriki was joined by his roommate at the door. The red head propped herself against the frame and looked out at the trio standing on their welcome mat. From the immediate blushes that came to Neji and Lee's faces, the girl was also dressed in nothing but a tight white singlet and a pair of underwear. "Oh? It's you guys."

Tenten was, by this point, gawking as she gestured between the half-naked Naruto and the half-naked Tayuya. "W-What… What… huh…?"

Naruto grinned across at his girlfriend, "I've been invited to an early morning party, apparently."

"Sounds fun," the girl replied, running her hand through her bed-made, wild hair while sizing up the fully-dressed team of older kids still gawking at them. "What's the occasion?"

"Something about… reinvigorating my flames of youth," the jinchuriki replied word for word. "I don't know what's involved, but I bet it's going to be a blast."

"Well, let me know how it goes," Tayuya exclaimed, thumping him in the shoulder, "Be back before lunch so we can go get something good to eat. It's my day off as well and I want to get some more sleep in before eating."

"Kay. Have fun-OW!" Naruto replied, only to be interrupted in his turning around when he felt something sharp chomp at his shoulder and looked back to see the kunoichi bouncing away with a cheeky grin on her face. "TAYUYA! What did I say about biting me?" When he saw her stick her tongue out at him, he smirked back at her before looking around at the squad still standing by and watching the show. "Sorry about that. I'll meet you guys down on the Third Training Ground in a bit."

Before any of the shocked members of Team Gai could say anything Naruto had already closed the door on them.

Neji pointed at the shut entrance, his mind quickly processing what he'd just seen before lowering his arm back to his side. Recomposing himself, seeing as how he must have looked quite unbecoming with his jaw open, the teen cleared his throat, "That was… unorthodox."

Tenten was about to say something more about that and follow up on the topic in question before Naruto's loud voice from inside interrupted her. "You're going to be punished for that, Tayuya-chan!" The blush that grew on her face following that outburst went up to the roots of her hair like mercury in a thermometer that had just been dunked in boiling water.

While his exclamations implicated otherwise, what Naruto really meant by what he said was to give his kunoichi flat mate a beat down with one of their room's pillows.

They didn't know that though, and it was feeding the group standing outside with all sorts of perverted images…

OOO

Later that morning…

Elsewhere…

The Third Hokage had every Jonin with a Genin squad from his village gathered before him in his office to discuss a very important matter that needed to be addressed.

The information and communication channels had been in uproar for the past month, as the leader of the hidden leaf had been in contact with every other neutral and standing shinobi village surrounding theirs regarding the upcoming special event intended to envelop the entire continent. If the stars were all aligned correctly and everyone's affairs had been put in order, then this big thing they had going for was predicted to be a whopping success. However, if the winds didn't favor them and the universe was just screwing around with the people tasked with organizing it, then the five great shinobi nations were looking at one major tragedy just waiting to happen.

Hiruzen had his hopes up though. If anything he was more than looking forward to this one.

There hadn't been a Chunin Exam involving all five of the great nations in… well… ever.

This would be the first one in their world's history.

"So… do all of you understand what I have just explained to you and what's at stake?" the village's old leader asked as he looked around sagely at the gathering of Jonin captains and Chunin arranged before him. He saw all of them nod and give him looks that conveyed their acknowledgement to his words, which had the Third smile. "Good. Since we all know what's going on and all of the big names participating, I believe it's time we hear from the ones who wish to enter their teams into the exams." He watched the men and women all tense up, turning his gaze serious. "Let me remind you all that the trials your teams are likely to face will be some of the toughest they will probably see in their young lives. While I advise you to think things over before jumping to a decision, if you believe that your teams are more than ready, then come forward. I'll start with the rookie teams."

At that, the Third watched as Asuma, Kurenai and Kakashi nudged their way to the front of the crowd, where the three then stood before the village leader's gaze. Upon having the man's eyes fix on them, the instructors readied themselves for the submission process.

"Well? Do any of you three have Genin you would like to enter into this coming Chunin Selection Exams?" A frown appeared on the Third's face as he laced his fingers together. "While I don't have to tell you this but, for the sake of being informed, after a Genin has properly completed eight missions on their record, they are automatically allowed to take the exams if nominated by their sensei. As I understand it, because so much time has passed in preparation for this event, all of your teams have had more than enough time to complete the required eight and even a few C-Ranked missions; therefore they are free to enter at your behest. So? What are your decisions?"

Kakashi stepped forward and formed a single-handed hand seal as he addressed the Third properly. "Under the name of Hatake Kakashi, I nominate my team to take the Chunin Selection Exams."

Kurenai and Asuma also stepped forward, and formed the same sign as their compatriot.

"Under the name Yuhi Kurenai, I too nominate my team to take the Chunin Selections Exams."

"Sarutobi Asuma, same as to my left."

Hiruzen nodded, "Very well then." His eyes then glanced off to his side, where he could see Iruka standing in amongst the crowd with an intense expression in play. The aura he was giving off alone was enough to have the eyes of all those elites with experience worth mentioning glance in his general direction to see what had his shirt on so tight. "You have something you wish to say, Iruka?"

The man, seeing the eyes of all those present fall on him, smirked, "Nope. Not at all."

"No… concerns or worries?" the Third asked, raising an eyebrow. "The children on these teams were your students at one point, yes? Do you have anything you wish to add before I process their names and make their enlistments official?"

Iruka chuckled and slipped his hands into his pockets. "No. I'm absolutely confident that the children I've passed on to these three are more than ready to take part in this prestigious event. It's been six months, and the sheer scale of this exam is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It would be unfair of me to dispute the Jonin captains their decisions." His smile grew even wider when his eyes then landed on Kakashi. "In fact, I'm willing to bet that one of mine will be able to breeze through it all the way to the very end… straight through the tournament segment right to the top."

Hiruzen blinked, "Oh?"

"What makes you so confident, Iruka?" another voice suddenly spoke, drawing everyone's collective attention to the man in the green spandex uniform and bowl-cut, black hair style. Gai smiled when his gaze fell on the Chunin, "My team passed up on last year's exam to get all of the training and missions they needed to make it into the next one and pass with flying colors. Why do you say that one of the 'rookie nine' will be able to make it?"

Iruka smiled, exchanging glances with Kakashi to see him share a nod of his own before looking back at the grinning Gai-sensei. "Because there is a boy on one of the rookie teams whom I've acknowledged as one of my most excellent students…"

OOO

Sometime later…

Training Field Three…

The sound of heavy thuds rang out across the field as two very fast moving blurs, one orange and one green, engaged each other across the wide open space provided for them on the fields of the third training ground. Dashing left and right, crisscrossing and circling continuously, kicking up dust and blades of grass in their wake, the out of focus forms of Lee and Naruto traded even blows with one another in an unbelievable display of speed and raw strength. If you were to look closely, you could also trace the telltale signs of sweat filling the air in the form of clouds that could be seen bursting and dispelling one after the other, at the same time as the two lightning fast bodies traveled through them.

Sitting safely on the sidelines, Neji and Tenten watched in awe and interest respectively as the most unlikely Genin in the whole of Konohagakure went toe to toe with one of the best taijutsu practitioners their age. From an ordinary person's point of view, their battle was taking place in a whole different time and space. But from the Genins' point of view, they could see the fight taking place in all its high octane glory, and it was spectacular.

The two blurs dashed passed one another again, trading hits before converging on the center once again, a loud 'bang' ringing out when the two, invisibly fast Genin materialized out of thin air before being blasted backwards from where their attacks collided. Both skidding to a stop, they glared at one another. While Lee had his left arm behind him and right held forward in his typical taijutsu stance, complete with smile and blood trickling down from the corner of his lip and bruised cheek, Naruto's stance was wide and hunched over, his arms hanging down at his sides and a grin spread across his own face. The blonde also had blood running down from the corner of his mouth with the exact same bruising, the pair having traded their first clean shots in that last engagement.

Excitement growing, Naruto lifted a hand and brushed the blood away from his face. "You're amazing, Bushy Brow. You're the first person outside of Neji able to trade hits with me evenly."

The teen in green smirked and also wiped the blood away from his chin. "You too, Naruto-kun. As I expected of my eternal rival, you are an incredible shinobi with amazing sense, timing, strength and speed."

"You must have worked yourself to the bone to get as good as you are," the jinchuriki said as he straightened up a little, with his arms still at his sides. "I can tell. Your form is spot on and your movements are so smooth and precise. The power in your hits is also really amazing." He rubbed his jaw to emphasize his point. "Damn, even though it was a duel exchange, your punch really packed a wallop…"

"I express the same amazement in kind," Lee replied, massaging his stern chin and rolling his lower jaw around to test to see if there was any serious damage. Thankfully only his mouth got cut up. "Your swings are sharp and your blows cut like blades. For your form to possess such power…"

The two removed their hands and reset their stances.

"Amazing," they both thought at the same time.

At this point, Tenten was gawking in bewilderment. "I had no idea there was someone our age in this village capable of trading blows with Lee. Except for you, I doubt there would be anyone out there who can fight Lee on his turf."

"Their power and speed are evenly matched, but their styles are completely different. Though I suspected they would be," Neji added, bringing his hand up to his jaw line and rubbing it thoughtfully. "Lee's form possesses the grace and ferocity of our instructor right down to the movement of his toes. Naruto's stance on the other hand lacks refinement and balance, yet he fights with perfectly rounded technique, base and power in spite of his glaring faults."

The kunoichi blinked and looked across at the Hyuuga, whom she could see was giving the two boys his complete and utter attention. Though it was strange, since she'd never seen the team's genius ever take any interest in Lee's training or practices, now that she thought about it a bit more, she could understand why.

Naruto had been the first boy ever their age or younger to have landed a clean blow on the genius, whom he was also able to slip right out from under him when he was standing right in front of him. It was an incredible feat even for someone older and more experienced, so you could say that that one punch Neji took from the kid had been a real eye opener for him.

Since then he was done ignoring the people he once thought were inferior to him and started to invest more attention in both his teammates and others. He had also lightened up a bit, spoke more kindly towards his teammates and not at them, offered helpful advice when they needed it, and spent more time with them outside of missions and training. He had also expressed more interest in Lee's challenges and encouraged him to do better next time, rather than shooting him down like he used to.

This was all probably due to Naruto's impact. If he was able to get someone like Neji to break open his walls from a single blow to the face and a flash of his childish grin, well, there was no telling what the blonde was capable of doing…

His presence also spiked further interest from the shuriken user, who addressed Neji with an inquiry she hoped the sharp-eyed genius would be able to answer for her. "Naruto is a year younger than us yet he fights on our level. How is he so strong?"

The Hyuuga frowned. "I don't know. However, I can guess that in taijutsu alone he has been fighting like this his entire life. It certainly explains why he's so physically prevailing."

"Is he… I don't know; some kind of genius or something?"

"At first glance, probably. He certainly is well-versed in misdirection and operating unconventionally. But now that I look closer, his fighting style is a miscellany of several different forms, ranging from textbook to unorthodox. Every move he executes is different from the last and he never repeats the same motions, making his line of attack impossible to read. He also fights with a staggered pattern, both defensively and misleadingly rather than directly," Neji replied before looking over at the girl. "It takes a special kind of body to fight that way; just like Lee. If you ask me, I think that his fighting style is inherited from years of watching, learning, and training every single day rather than naturally born. It's almost like his fighting style is a part of his everyday life. It says everything about him."

"A personality based style, huh?" Tenten murmured before looking back at the two boys now circling one another. "Yeah… I think you're right. He said so himself; he trained for days on end to get as good as he is, so it only makes sense fighting has become second nature to him."

"Just like all shinobi practices, the skills you develop stick with you even in old age," Neji replied, allowing his own eyes to settle back on the pair. When he looked at Naruto and the way he was swaying and at Lee to see him switch the positions of his hands, the genius smirked. "Both of them are unbelievable. They're enjoying themselves way too much, and they're not even serious yet."

"Damn," Tenten exclaimed, looking back at the boys to see them stop and hold their positions, having now switched sides. The brown haired girl looked over them, before her eyes settled on the jinchuriki. "I can see why Naruto was so willing to fight Lee today… he's not only got guts, he's also got the strength to back up his words. Incredible." A warm smile came across her gaze, one that did not go unnoticed by Neji.

He chose to dismiss this though, as he felt it was not the time or place to openly infer anything to his kunoichi teammate.

When Naruto and Lee stood each other down in yet another face off, the pair contemplated taking their spar up to the next level. So far, the pair had been fighting with their most basic and used forms; Rock Lee sticking to the Hard Fist style he'd practiced with his sensei while his weights were still on, and Naruto with his trick move defensive style. They had managed to trade even blows, even a duel exchange in the last clash. But if either one of them wanted to break the stalemate, they needed to up their game and get serious.

At that moment, Lee dropped to his knees and grabbed his leg warmers, whereas Naruto prepared to shift up a gear, bringing his right fist to his cheek and dropping his left to swing out in front of him.

"It may be overdoing it, but if I am to defeat Naruto-kun here and now, I'll need to go all out," Lee thought. Hopefully the need to use the gates wouldn't come, but losing the weights should be sufficient enough for the task.

"If he's planning to get serious, I guess I should too," Naruto thought, his left beginning to swing from side to side like a pendulum as he prepared to take on a skipping rhythm with his footwork. "This is a taijutsu fight, so I'll use my Tracer and take him at top speed." If this went well, then he probably wouldn't need to use his new, secret technique.

However, just as it seemed like the pair were going to take it up a notch, they then realized where exactly this friendly spar was going and smiled at one another. Naruto stopped hopping on the spot and relaxed, while his adversary got back to his feet, with both of them standing straight up and grinning at one another brightly.

"Good fight," Naruto exclaimed.

Lee nodded in agreement, "A most youthful battle indeed."

By this point in time, the amount of tension that had filled the air from both opponents pouring all of their focus into their confrontation had left Neji and Tenten standing and sweating. When the pair finally stood down and calmed, the two onlookers nearly collapsed back onto the log they had been seated on and simply took in a deep breath to settle their nerves.

"Th-That's it?" Tenten asked. Obviously, she had been expecting Lee to dish out the big moves like he normally did. Why did he stop? "You're not going to keep fighting?"

Naruto smiled at the kunoichi, causing her shoulders to jerk suddenly. "We could have continued, but if we were to go all out on each other one or both of us would have wound up in hospital. Personally, that's not how I want to spend the rest of my day."

Lee too grinned. "This spar was more than enough."

The girl then shrugged and gave a half-nervous smile. "Okay. If that makes you guys happy." She then scratched her head and placed her hands on her hips. "Man… you two are something else, you know that? Sure it was just a spar, but the two of you were battering at each other like you were going all out."

Appearing sheepish, both Naruto and Lee rubbed the back of their heads, "Really? Sorry…"

"Why are you apologizing?" Neji asked, folding his arms. "If you can fight like that and not even break a sweat, you should be proud." He then narrowed his eyes. "But don't slack off because of that. I still expect a challenge from both of you when the time comes, especially from you Naruto." He directed his gaze towards the jinchuriki and formed a smile. "I'm still waiting for my rematch."

The blonde waved at him, "No problem. Maybe next time. It's still morning and I haven't had breakfast yet." He patted his stomach and gave a chuckle when it growled. "The tank is empty and I need ramen. Who's with me?" All he got for that question were blank stares from his fellow shinobi, all of whom immediately appeared baffled by his proposal.

"You… eat ramen… for breakfast?" Neji asked.

Naruto made a bit of a dipping sign with his hand, "I dabble from ramen to pancakes to oats. It all depends on the day and how I'm feeling. I've got a killer metabolism."

"How… unfortunate," the Hyuuga murmured. "Well… it certainly explains why he's so energetic. His sugar level must be through the roof."

Upon basking in the momentary silence and looking around at the various, deadpanned faces of her teammates, Tenten then smiled at the blonde still waiting eagerly for an answer and raised her hand. "I'm in." This response received odd looks from both Neji and Lee, while the jinchuriki quickly brightened up and took the kunoichi's hand in his without question or hesitation.

"Come on! I know the best joint in town!" Ignoring Tenten's blushing face, Naruto then began leading her out of the field, waving back at the two boys who saw them off in silence until they were gone from sight.

Upon seeing their silhouettes vanish over the rise, Neji looked across at his teammate, "You okay?"

The teen wearing green rubbed the side of his face. "It was a passionate blow; one burning brightly with the flames of youth. This is nothing that five-hundred push-ups cannot fix." He then gave the trademark Rock Lee salute and surprised his companion with a loud holler. "YOSH! And if I cannot do five-hundred pushups to help mend my bruised face, then I will do one-thousand kicks to reinvigorate my own flames of youth!"

Before Neji could say anything about how physical exercise didn't really help heal injuries, he saw his teammate drop to the floor and start doing full pushups in a blur.

The Hyuuga sighed and shook his head as Lee threw himself back into the game, the same one he figured he figured he would have gotten accustomed to by now, "Maybe they should have kept going. At least then Lee would be too tired to move on to this…"

Though the image of an exhausted Lee throwing in the towel because of a little fatigue just didn't seem like a possibility…

OOO

Sometime later…

"You really are a strange one."

"Uhh… pardon," Naruto replied after slurping up the noodles he was currently feasting on. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he looked across at the girl who had willingly accompanied him to the Ichiraku stand, where he saw the kunoichi stirring her serving of ramen and looking in his direction with a curious glint on her face. "A strange one?"

"Yeah," Tenten exclaimed with a smile, "And not the kind that makes Lee the way he is. No, you're a completely different kind of strange."

The jinchuriki blinked at her elaboration of her statement before pressing his fingers together shamefully. "I don't mean to be."

"Hey. I didn't say it was a bad thing," the kunoichi said, leaning towards him while still beaming. "Your character is what makes you who you are as both a ninja and a person. In my opinion, if you didn't act the way you did and your personality was something else altogether, then you probably wouldn't be able to do half the stuff you already know how to do; like your taijutsu, your impulsiveness, your speed… everything. If you didn't have the mind to twist and turn your body the way you wanted it to, you wouldn't be able to fight as effectively as you do now."

Hearing this follow-through had Naruto glance at her with a curious gaze before a smile appeared. "You mean that?"

"Sure. Every word."

A chuckle escaped him as he acknowledged the kunoichi's compliments with a nod. "I would really like to see how you fight too, Tenten-chan. You're so cool looking… I bet you have an awesome fighting style. Since you're so pretty, I bet your form is also beautiful.

His completely sincere exclamation had Tenten turn away to hide her blush. She covered the half of her face still visible with her hand to keep him from sneaking a peek, "What? Beautiful? No way. Don't even joke like that."

"Well, how do you know if you're awesome if you don't show and tell once in a while?" Naruto asked, leaning over to try and look her in the eye, only to see her turn some more, which had him grin. "Even if you're not fighting you're still gorgeous."

"S-Stop saying that!" Tenten mumbled, trying to cover her face but failing miserably. "Don't lie."

"But it's true!"

"No, it's not," the kunoichi replied quickly, her face glowing at this point. "Why am I acting like this? This is embarrassing. Damn it! I've never been teased by a boy before. Is this what being complimented like that feels like?"

"Tenten-chan has a really cute reaction," Naruto thought mischievously before chuckling to himself. Boy, he really loved messing with people, and with someone like Tenten, it was even more fun. Even though he meant what he said with every word, he could still find enjoyment from a person's fluster. "I could get used to this." He then leaned closer to the girl, who visibly edged away some more. "Even if you don't want to show me, I know you can throw knives really well. I still remember when you almost tried to kill me and Tayuya-chan back in the woods that one time. Remember?"

The girl perked at this and turned to him in shock, "Hey. That was an accident. I had no idea there were people in the area…"

Naruto grinned when he saw her flustered look and nodded, "It was still one hell of a throw. Judging from how you could hit a mark from sixty meters away with just a couple of kunai, I bet you're a weapons specialist." He opened his eyes to see the kunoichi looking at him in confusion. "Now I definitely want to see how you fight. When I think about it a little more, I might actually want to challenge you to a spar myself… if you're up for one that is."

Upon meeting his gaze and hearing his words, the girl looked away and laced her fingers together restlessly. "After seeing the way you fought Lee… I doubt I'd really stand much of a chance. You guys are fast."

"That doesn't mean you can't win," Naruto continued without missing a beat. He saw her glance at him again, her expression still carrying uncertainty. "Whether you're strong or weak, fast or slow, anyone who is anyone can win a fight. It just takes the right amount of stuff and the right moves to do it." He held up his fist to her in a show of confidence. "The most important thing though is to know you can win and to fight like you mean it, dattebayo."

Blinking at his speech, the girl smirked, "So… you're saying someone like me can beat someone as tough as you; someone who was able to give Neji, the rookie of the year from our group and probably the strongest Genin in this village, a run for his money?"

"Yep!"

"You do realize my teammate has never lost a single fight or taken any damage from either me or Lee in all our time spent together as a squad. Do you honestly believe someone who has lost to someone that strong countless times would be able to beat someone as good as you, a person who was able to get in one good punch after running dozens of circles around him?"

"Like I said," Naruto grinned, drinking up the broth in his bowl before sitting it down and smiling, "Anyone who is anyone can win."

Tenten giggled at his expression and the fact that he had some green stuck to the corner of his mouth. She poked the corner of her lip to show him, which he quickly picked up on and peeled the piece of vegetable away. "Whatever you say, Naruto. Coming from a guy like you, that means a lot. Thanks." She then gave him a warm smile with a small tint of red in her cheeks. "Perhaps I will take you up on that offer for a fight after all. Do you know how to use a blade?"

Naruto beamed excitedly, "I… dabble from fist fighting to kenjutsu on occasion, yeah."

"Then I'll come by your place on my next day off and ask you for a spar, face to face," Tenten stated with a nod, "Deal?" She extended a hand to him.

"Deal," Naruto said happily, shaking hands with her. "I'll be looking forward to it, Tenten-chan." When they pulled away and the girl drew her limb to her chest to grasp it in the other, the boy turned back to the bar and its owner cooking broth on the other side. "Oji-san! Another round please!"

"Sure thing, kid. One more serving coming up!"

As Naruto waited patiently for his next bowl with a beat to his tapping, he failed to notice Tenten rubbing the hand he'd shook and was looking across at him with an incredibly fond gaze. While for the most part she ignored the expression she was currently making as she was too caught up in appreciating his bright visage and dashing grin, the kunoichi wouldn't have been able to do anything to dispute her actions as she was also too wrapped up in her own thoughts, most of which were focused solely on the blonde sitting squarely in her sights.

Her eyes wavered in admiration as warmth filled her cheeks. "He's not only strong… he's also really nice…" Normally someone of his strength and skill would be acting all cold and emotionless like Neji, but he wasn't. Now that was something worth considering.

Unknown to her, Ayame and Teuchi noticed her staring at their best customer warmheartedly, with the two shop owners smiling at one another in knowing amusement. Not wanting to embarrass her, they decided to keep this little observation to themselves for the time being…

OOO

Some hours later…

Up in the hospital, Tayuya stood waiting outside one of the many office doors leaning against the wall with her arms folded. After several minutes of tapping her finger against her bicep and tracing the lines along the corridor with her eyes, she then saw the entrance to the room open up and Isaribi come strolling out, tightening up the bandages on her arm. Turning and bowing to the woman sitting inside and earning a gentle wave in return, the purple haired girl then closed the door and turned to the red head standing beside her.

The musician stood off of the barrier and looked towards the tense looking girl expectantly. "So… how did it go?"

"They'd had a close look at my x-rays and the results of the other tests they'd performed on me," Isaribi murmured uneasily, beginning the long walk down the hall towards the hospital's exit. "Apparently the kaima form is so well integrated into my system that it's going to be a little bit difficult making the necessary changes to make me look normal again. It's going to take a really experienced medical nin to perform the operations."

"That's it?"

Isaribi nodded. "Fixing me is possible… it just requires more… practiced hands."

"Well then, problem solved," Tayuya exclaimed, with a smile on her face. "Who've they got lined up for you?" From the expression on the girl's face that the musician got in return had the kunoichi clamp her mouth shut. "Oh…"

Isaribi nodded glumly. "They said that they would need someone like Tsunade or someone comparable in skill to her to help fix me up."

"Wait. Tsunade? One of the three legendary Sannin?" When she got a nod of yes as her answer, Tayuya cursed. "Shit. She hasn't been seen in the village in years."

"They're… going to try to find someone else to do the operations, but it's going to take a little bit of time," Isaribi murmured.

Tayuya looked across at her in concern as they walked on. "And you're okay with that? With waiting I mean."

A small smile appeared on Isaribi's face as her eyes fixated on Tayuya's again. "Yes. I've waited this long for my chance to be normal again. I can wait a little bit longer."

The red head visibly brightened when she heard that her new roommate was willing to hold out and straightened up. "That's good."

The pair walked, exiting the hospital side by side some minutes later. When they reached the front gate, Tayuya decided they should go get some lunch to eat, which her friend quickly agreed to and followed after her. Craving something soaking in broth, the pair began making their way towards one of the many restaurants that sold soup style dishes. While ramen was indeed a tempting option for the day, there were many other choices out there that they could pick from and add to their repertoire.

While they were strolling along, Tayuya couldn't help but shoot some glances towards the purple haired diver, who moved along at a comfortable stride alongside her until she felt the kunoichi's eyes boring into her temple. She turned to look at the red head curiously.

"What? What is it?"

Looking the other girl in the eyes, Tayuya smirked deviously. "You like Naruto-kun, don't you?"

At that, Isaribi's face flashed bright red. "W-What?"

The kunoichi pointed at her fellow roommate triumphantly. "Yes. You like him."

"W-What… no I don't," Isaribi sputtered, turning away, interlocking her fingers and rubbing her thumbs nervously. "Why… h-how… why would you think that?"

"Simple. It's the way you look at him," Tayuya answered, getting the shocked girl to turn to her again. The purple haired teen's stunned appearance encouraged the kunoichi to carry on and continue counting points. "The way you talk to him, smile at him, cling to him whenever you're near him and listen to him. Even if he can't see it, I can. You really like him."

"I… I don't… I," Isaribi gulped, seeing Tayuya lean forward with a mischievous look reflected in her gaze and getting the young diver to turn away a second time. Swallowing anxiously, Isaribi attempted to think of a suitable rebuttal, a dispute to help push away any further claims, but after a few minutes of hard thinking she was unable to. "Naruto-kun… is… such a kind person."

Tayuya beamed and pulled back, slipping a hand into her pocket. "Damn right he is."

"No one has ever been so nice to me," Isaribi exclaimed, a small smile coming to her glowing face as she pressed her fingers together anxiously. "He's friendly, down to earth, sweet… and he's done so much for me. I've only known him for a few weeks… but ever since I met him… I just… can't stop thinking about him." Expression conveying concern some seconds later, she then looked across at the red head to see her attention fixed on her. "But… even though I like him, I know Naruto-kun likes you. He cares about you and is already with you… so even though I have feelings for him and I want to be with him… I'll never…"

"Who says you don't have to be with him?" Tayuya asked with a shrug, getting a surprised blink out of the purple haired teen. The red head smirked, "Shithead isn't the type of guy to favor one person over another. Besides…" A roguish grin crossed her face as she considered the teen beside her. "It would be pretty boring if there weren't any other girls chasing after him."

Isaribi was baffled at first by the kunoichi's daring response, but then after processing it some, gave a weak smile in return, which only strengthened when Tayuya jabbed her in the arm.

"If you like that knucklehead, you'd better get your ass in gear and throw your name in for consideration," Tayuya added with assurance.

Was it weird that she was encouraging another girl to go after Naruto just because she wanted to have a little bit of competition? Maybe she'd been hanging around with Anko for so long it'd inadvertently twisted her perspective on the world a little. It sure made things way more interesting and exciting for the musician, that was for certain.

---

Meanwhile…

Many, many miles away…

Thrown up against a grey stone wall in a grimy back alleyway, a man wearing dark battle attire with bandages wrapped around his neck with red makeup painted on his face and chin, could be seen lying in a disenchanted state between the two, two-story buildings. Along with his war umbrella lying uselessly on the ground beside him and held weakly in his grip, the exhausted mercenary could do nothing or say anything as he watched his latest opponent saunter on over to him from the end of the lane.

Though a person in his position would normally be acting desperately at this point, there was a good reason why he was unable to mount an effective response. Not only was his entire front gashed up with enormous holes punctured into him, but the entire back wall behind him had been painted in his own blood and the stone floor beneath him had started to pool with it. In addition to this, the entire alleyway he was lying in was scarred up and battle worn, indicating a very brief but fierce engagement had been fought here.

It had only lasted a few long seconds too, as the man had been more intent on getting away from his foe as opposed to fighting her, and had paid the price with attempting to hold his ground.

In fact… his entire gang of missing ninja had copped it big time against the woman. He'd witnessed the slaughter for himself.

It didn't take a man with a degree in mathematics to figure out that of the entire squad, he was the last one remaining.

Panting heavily as he gazed up at his enemy eclipsing the sky behind her, the man could only marvel at the slender form of the women as she stopped before him with her weight shifted to one side, and the element she had used to do battle with hovering in the background. When the wounded mercenary's exhausted vision cleared up, he was able to get a good view of a gorgeous, well-endowed kunoichi around her twenties, with long, dark brown hair tied into a ponytail, and a very well developed body figure. Her attire consisted of pure white silk, which covered only the most necessary parts of her… if only barely. This included her chest area, which looked a little breezy both underneath and over her bust, and her hips, where she wore a battle skirt.

Even though he got a better than decent view of her figure, the dying man couldn't get a good shot of her face, as both her head and eyes was shrouded, and her entire body was framed by an enormous veil. The sheets of white silk and fabric fanned out around her like a flower, flowing like the wind and giving her a completely intimidating appearance. She also wore her veil like a hood, which hid her gaze under a shadow if her bangs weren't enough to do that, but from what the man could make out she had a very fair face.

Gulping down blood welling up in his mouth, the wounded missing nin grinned through bloody teeth as his attacker towered over his useless form. "Considering my current condition… begging for my life now … would be kind of pointless … wouldn't it?" Looking up her long legs that seemed to go on forever, he fixed his attention on the shade under her hood.

The woman lowered her head in an immediate response, "Yes… it would be." Raising a delicate hand covered by a silk glove, the kunoichi willed the sheet of fabric wrapped around it to converge around her fingers. The cloth she summoned quickly snapped into the shape and form of a large drill, which she then reared back. "You and your friends gave me quite a chase across Mori no Kuni (Land of Forests). But with all of you now dead and you being the last one left alive, Shinobazu is done." Her glare darkened, "It's time for me to collect on your heads."

Shura chuckled, looking the woman over one last time, "Dying at the hands of the Veiled Kunoichi? I couldn't have asked for a better send-off."

The masked assassin nodded, before driving the silk spear encasing her limb straight into the man's chest, nailing him to the wall with a single blow. "Shoru Ransu." (Shawl Lance)

Expression conveying sudden shock and pain, the leader of Shinobazu Shura slowly relaxed under the weapon as the last of his life force dissipated. Grip releasing his umbrella, the man's eyes slowly shut closed, never to be opened again as his assailant ripped her drill out of his chest and unfurled it, clearing it of the blood.

Stepping back, the woman smirked triumphantly at her kill and held her other hand forward, sending one of the sheets hovering behind her to wrap around the body. Once the corpse was bound, she disconnected the fabric from the rest of her veil before bringing the other three cocoons she'd wrapped the other members of the gang in to the front.

It had been an invigorating three-day chase, but after a long pursuit through forests, canyons, valleys and towns, finally… success. She'd managed to corner the entire gang inside of the village and slew them all in just half an hour; a quick job for an easy fifty million for all of the bodies.

It brought a sense of satisfaction to her soul.

"You do good work, Veiled Kunoichi."

Looking up, the woman turned on the spot to face the entrance to the alley she was still standing in. When she did, she saw four figures lined up there at a reasonable distance apart from each other, which immediately had the assassin furrow her brow and subconsciously raise the sheets behind her defensively.

Checking out the newcomers, the kunoichi made out a young man with jet black hair forming bangs on either side of a handsome face, a tall man carrying a large sword with blue skin and very shark like features, a half black, half white man with what looked like a carnivorous plant growing around him, and a dark skinned man with red and green eyes and wearing a grey face mask. All of them were adorned in the same black cloaks with red cloud symbols on them, and almost all of them were wearing forehead protectors that had a slash mark across the village emblems.

The one that had spoken up was the shark-looking man with the enormous blade on his back, which the kunoichi's eyes quickly glued onto and saw the smug expression he was shooting towards her.

"Or would you prefer to be called… Misora Amaya?"

Taking in each member of the group carefully, the assassin in white turned to them more completely, "Kisame Hoshigaki… and Itachi Uchiha?" Wow. That was an impressive amount of firepower. Either one of those two could drop her in, like, twenty minutes if push came to shove here. A small smile formed across her lips at the prospects of a possible battle. "Well, isn't this a pleasant surprise. What business does Akatsuki have with me today?"

The boy with the dark hair identified as Itachi Uchiha stepped forward, his Sharingan eyes looking across at the scandalously dressed killer intently. "We're here on the orders of our leader. Due to certain… extenuating circumstances, a couple of spots have opened up within our ranks and we were just wondering if you're still interested in joining the organization."

Expression conveying a small sense of surprise, the girl reached up with a delicate finger and gently pushed the edge of her veil to the side. When she did, she revealed one of her two sapphire blue eyes sitting underneath her locks of hair, which pierced the shadows of her hood.

Looking at the four men blocking her way carefully, the beautiful young woman grinned.

"I'm listening…"

TO BE CONTINUED…

---

Author's Note: Well, that's another chapter. Just filling in the events that occur leading up to the next arc. Isaribi is living with Naruto, both she and Tayuya are sticking to him like glue, Tayuya and Naruto's date, Sasuke got his Sharingan, Sakura is still training, more missions, Tenten is becoming much more attached to Naruto... oh, and Kakuzu's new partner. She's OC, yes, but she won't overshadow any of the other members, she's just a gun for fire. More on that later though.

I believe the next chapter will be the Chunin Exams. Hopefully I will be able to get right into it and not keep you guys waiting for too long for the next one. Hope you enjoyed it.