What's this? Another chapter? You bet it is! Thanks for all the reviews, you guys are awesome! We're sorry about the sporadicness of the updates, but we do have updates scheduled, those scheduled updates just happen to be a bit far away from each other. No worries though. We're still alive.
Reniko was, for lack of a better term, pissed. He was carrying a rather large box of meat home, so that for the next three days he could feast on Korean BBQ breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Curse him and his small stomach.
Maybe if he was lucky, his sister would help him. She disliked mom's cooking. Although getting her to eat it for breakfast was a bit of a stretch.
More importantly, Reniko blew his entire allowance on one night. Sarunte always promised him that he would pay him back eventually. At this rate, Sarunte would need to be his slave in order for all of that debt to be paid off. That wouldn't be that bad, actually. Sarunte, cleaning his room, having to play go with him whenever he wanted, maybe Sarunte could even learn how to cook, and make him meals. Then he would never have to eat his mom's cooking again.
…
Well, that last one was a bit of a stretch. But Sarunte the manservant certainly was a great idea.
As he turned the corner, speak of the devil, Sar-kun.
With Haruna.
Smiling.
Laughing.
Socializing, with that pink haired runty obnoxious brat! That traitor!
How dare he!
Sarunte brightened when he saw Reniko, and waved vigorously, only for Haruna to quickly stop him and give him a glare. Whatever she said to him made Sarunte clearly very sad, as the Uchiha looked frantically back and forth.
Reniko walked straight up to the duo.
"You left me with all that food!" Reniko hissed.
"Oh…I did? Wow. I musta been really outta it eh?"
Reniko rolled his eyes. "Shut up you. Do you have any idea how much money I blow on you weekly? I have had to do menial labor, to feed your stomach. And now, you're…cohorting…with her?!"
Sarunte paused for a moment, suddenly aware he was friends with Haruna. This shocked him, to say the least.
Haruna narrowed her eyes. "Go away Reniko. No one likes you anyway!"
"Hey! I like Neko-kun!" Sarunte yelled frantically.
"Yeah. Go away Haruna!" Reniko shot back. "No one likes YOU!"
"Hey! I like 'Aruna-chan!"
"You TRAITOR!" Reniko shouted indignantly. "You can't like her! She's…evil!"
"She is?" Sarunte asked bewildered, tilting his head. He looked at Haruna. "You are?"
"NO! Reniko is just a jerk ass."
"…You are?" Sarunte asked Reniko, slowly becoming more and more confused at the turn of events.
"NO!" Reniko cried exasperatedly. "You're just an IDIOT!"
"…I am?"
Haruna took offense. "HEY! Don't talk to Sarunte like that!"
"WHY ARE YOU DEFENDING HIM?!?" Reniko cried out. "YOU. HATE. HIM!"
"NO! I don't!" Haruna shouted back. "I just hate YOU! Without you, Sarunte-kun is actually nice!"
"Teehee. She called me Sarunte-kun. See. We are friends!" Sarunte said cheerfully, maybe not entirely getting the point of the standoff.
Reniko rolled his eyes. "You know what? Forget it. I don't have time for this. I have to wake up for training tomorrow, and if Ketsuki-sensei thinks I'm even an iota of tired, he's going to stick me in his greenhouse. And that is something I do not want. Especially not after last time."
"What happened las' time?" Sarunte asked curiously.
"Let's just say I no longer wonder how Mitsu lost his eye, alright?" Reniko said darkly, before heading home.
Haruna shuddered. She almost felt sorry for Reniko. Almost.
Sarunte suddenly brightened. "HEY! WAIT! RENI-KUN!"
Reniko stopped. "What?"
"We need to ask ya something!" Sarunte said eagerly.
Haruna grabbed Sarunte. "Sarunte! We can't ask him! He doesn't know anything!"
"Yeah but, his dad is s'all smar' and…stuff…" Sarunte replied.
Haruna sighed. "Oh fine…"
xXx
The next morning, Haruna and Sarunte met with Sakura sensei for their daily dosage of pain and suffering. Haruna could not help but notice Nara was not present. She was usually the early one, considering how she seemed to have nothing better to do then to not sleep the advised eight hours.
"Sakura-sensei, where's Nara?" Sarunte asked.
"She has personal business. She'll be gone for three days." Sakura said dismissively. "Now, we have some missions to do. Some old lady lost her cat and-"
"Sakura-sensei, what's the personal business?" Haruna asked.
"Personal. That means, you don't get to know." Sakura replied dryly. "Now get a move on before I get mad."
"Do YOU know Sakura-sensei?" Sarunte asked curiously.
"Yes. Now move."
"But if YOU know," Sarunte replied "Why can't WE know?"
Sakura sighed, walked up to the Uchiha, and glared at him. "Do YOU really want to take this path?"
"…" Sarunte contemplated this life or death situation. "Yes." He finally said.
Sakura rolled her eyes. "You are so lucky I'm not allowed to kill you. I can however, tie you to a tree, leave you here, have Haruna complete the mission, and untie you tomorrow morning."
Sarunte frowned. He started weighing the pros and cons. A whole day. That would mean a whole day without food. Not to mention mosquitoes. And no food. Well, he could get Reni to give him some, but for some reason Neko-baka was mad at him. What did he do?
Sarunte sighed. "Fine…"
Grumbling, the two genin set off to search for that blasted cat.
It was a normal, low ranked mission, and it sucked dreadfully. They had managed to tackle the cat, and using Haruna's Zajigan to put it to sleep. They had gotten quite good at this. Not a scratch on them, unless you count a minor scrape Sarunte got when he backed into some brambles.
"This is so boringgg…" Sarunte complained. "I wanna go on real missions. I wanna go an' beat the crap oudda missing-nin!"
"Yeah, because that worked so well the last time." Haruna grumbled. Sakura hadn't even followed them. She had just given them the information and left to do other things.
It was at times like this Haruna highly suspected that Sakura did not like them very much.
Or was really interested in training them at all. They did basic exercises, but it was all chakra control, chakra control, chakra control.
What was so great about chakra control? After all, Haruna had GREAT control, and while it was cool for walking up trees and on water, there wasn't much else you could do with it.
Haruna paused. She shifted the sleeping cat to one hand. "Sarunte-kun…do you…hear something?"
Sarunte frowned. He stopped, and cocked his head. "Yeah…yeah I think I do…" He put his hand on his hip, a few millimeters away from his shuriken holster.
Haruna whirled around. "Wait- from over there!"
"No! No! I heard it from over there! I heard it!" Sarunte argued, turning the other way.
Left, right, up, down, every couple of seconds the noise seemed to change places.
Sufficiently freaked out by this, Haruna and Sarunte turned their backs against each other to ensure maximum coverage.
"WHOEVER THE HELL ARE YOU, YOU CAN JUS' SHOW YOURSELF. OR WE'LL BEAT THE CRAP OUDDA YOU!" Sarunte hollered.
Haruna winced, trying to concentrate her hearing, but to no avail, as the sound seemed to surround them. "I…I don't think that's gonna help Sarunte…"
"Boo."
Both shrieking wildly, they fell backwards, to come face to face with a cheekily grinning Ryoga.
"Ryoga!" They cried out.
He chuckled nervously. "Haha. Sorry. This was Keitaro and Miyaki's idea."
The two other Suna ninja hopped down from the trees.
" 'Sup eyegirl and baka?" Keitaro asked casually.
Miyaki grinned widely. "OooOoooh that was me! You heard me! I've gotten good with sound control hmm?"
They didn't look too different, seeing as how they hadn't even been away from Sunagakure that long.
Ryoga blinked a bit. "Hey, where's that other girl? Nara-chan?"
"Oh, she…she's away at the moment." Haruna said vaguely.
"Whaddya guys doin' here anyway?" Sarunte asked excitedly.
Keitaro chuckled, and folded his arms. "Being the students of the brother of the Kazekage has its advantages. In a couple of weeks, Konohagakure is gonna hold the chuunin exams."
The reaction was instantaneous excitement. It was as if Keitaro had said all evil had been vanquished from the world, except that sort of thing would of made them rather sad, because then there would be no point in being a ninja.
"OH THIS IS AWESOME!" Sarunte shrieked in a slightly higher than expected pitched voice. "WE NEED TO TRAIN! AND TELL NA-CHAN! OH KAMI THIS IS SO AMAZING!" The Uchiha started to hyperventilate.
Haruna nodded vigorously in agreement. "yeah…although, Nara isn't here. She's doing that personal business Sakura-sensei was talking about."
"Oh…yeah." Sarunte said, crestfallen. "Maybe she knew 'bout the chuunin exams, and she lef' so she wouldn't hafta participate."
Haruna frowned. "Maybe…" she was slightly skeptical.
"Or MAYBE she's on some S ranked mission WITHOU' US!!" Sarunte continued.
Haruna groaned. "No. Just…no."
Keitaro smirked. "Better find her. Y'know you need to join as a team of three, or you don't go at all. Who knows, maybe you're just not ready for a task of this gravity…"
"Ngrhhhh" Sarunte growled. "You take tha' back you pink gooey scum!"
"Make me baka-boy." Keitaro shot back.
"Oh no not again" Ryoga whined. "We'll get caught and then we'll get deported or something…"
"Oh lighten up, they can't deport us. Torture and interrogate us MAYBE…" Miyaki mused with a menacing smile.
Haruna grabbed Sarunte. "C'mon Sarunte. S'not worth it." She muttered. With Nara gone, someone had to be the level headed one.
"Sarunte and Haruna, sittin' in a tree. C-H-E-A-T-I-N-G on N-A-R-A" Miyaki sung tunelessly.
"N…a…" Sarunte said for a moment. "HEY!"
"Oh relax cutie. Wasn't talking about YOU." Miyaki cackled.
"Oh that is IT! Will you just SHUT UP!" Haruna yelled.
"Then how am I gonna see hmmmm? OoooOoooh. Someone's embarrasseedddddd!"
Haruna lunged at Miyaki. And the fight began.
Or it would have, if Kankuro and Sakura had not stepped in immediately after.
"What. Are you DOING." Sakura hissed at the two. "It was one mission. One. Simple. Mission." She spoke quietly, and that seemed to make her all the more menacing. "Can't you go ANYWHERE without starting a ruckus?!?"
"They started it!" Sarunte pleaded.
"Yeah! Miyaki was…well…she was being mean." Haruna said awkwardly.
Sakura raised an eyebrow. "You attacked her…because she was being mean to you?"
"Well…it made sense at the time." Haruna mumbled, slightly ashamed.
"You two, come with me, we're going to train for the next week. Chakra control. If your efforts please me enough, I MIGHT let you enter the chuunin exams. But right now, it doesn't look good." Sakura said, in a slightly more calm voice.
"WHAT?!? NO! PLEASE! I BEG OF YOU!!!" Sarunte yelled, with Haruna echoing his shouts.
"Well then, we better get started training eh?" Sakura said with a smirk.
"…yes…Sakura-sensei." Haruna grumbled. It wasn't fair. Why did THEY get the sensei that was useless? Why did THEY get the sensei that NEVER helped them, and was always a jerk to them? It wasn't fair it wasn't fair itwasn'tfairITWASN'TFAIR! It wasn't fair.
So, Sarunte and Haruna left the scene, and they went to their old training grounds for the dreaded chakra training. Haruna was much better at it than Sarunte, but that was mostly because of the training her and Nara had done early on, when Nara had taught her how to walk on water.
While Sarunte was practicing keeping afloat, Haruna had to learn to do hand stands and several back flips on the water. Good thing she was so tiny and light. But the simultaneous chakra control in her feet and her hands was tiring. What was the point in this? It was not like she was ever going to fight this elaborately on WATER.
This sucked.
"Stop slacking Cataki!" Sakura yelled. "Put some effort into it!"
Haruna grumbled. Stupid sensei. What did she know? Nothing. That was right. Nothing. All she ever did was yell at them. Plus, Sakura was a medic nin. The most useless of useless techniques. You couldn't FIGHT with medical jutsus! All you could do was heal people! Which wouldn't be needed, if they just fought in the first place! Lousy Sakura. She didn't even deserve the honorific 'sensei' on her name.
Sarunte glared at Haruna. " 'Aruna –chan. Would you stop being so sour? You're kinda annoying."
"I'M the annoying one?!?" Haruna shouted indignantly. "Sakura is the one that isn't teaching us anything! Nara is the one that gets to avoid all of this."
Sarunte frowned. " 'Aruna-chan, you're acting like you're ten."
"I AM ten!"
"Well, yeah but, don'tcha hate being told ya are?"
"Yeah…"
"Well, ok. Look, 'Ar-chan, I hate ta be the bearer of bad news, but your kinda bein' an ungrateful little bitch." Sarunte said calmly.
Haruna stared at Sarunte, not sure as whether she should hit him, or try and let him explain himself. After a couple moments of silence, Sarunte sighed.
" 'Aruna, Sakura-sensei is our sensei. We gotta respect her an' stuff. We might not like this stuff, but it's gotta mean something. Sakura-sensei was the apprentice to Hokage-sama y'know."
Haruna blinked. "She was?"
"Yeah. Didn'tcha know? My parents were raving happy 'bout it when they found out. Said I was being primped for ANBU material. Not too sure what they meant by that, but I think it's a good thing." Sarunte said nonchalantly, taking a couple of steps in the water, feeling a bit more confident in his control.
Haruna frowned. "But she's so…distant…and…mean…"
"Well, yeah, one teammate went and betrayed Konoha, before coming back forgiven, and then being killed, her sensei was killed, and her other teammate went missing and was never seen 'gain." Sarunte recited dully. "Plus, she's a ninja an' all. She's prolly seen a lotta kooky stuff y'know?"
"Oh. Yeah…I guess…" Haruna frowned. She still didn't like it.
" Jus' promise me 'Aruna-chan that ya won't give her cheek or anythin'?" Sarunte asked.
"Yeah…o.k…I won't." Haruna sighed. "You're one to talk though." She retorted back.
Sarunte shrugged. "I dunno 'bout you, but I wanna get into that chuunin exam. I'm gonna do whatever it takes, and pissin' 'er off an' all ain't gonna help us. At all."
Haruna paused. Sarunte was right. Damn it. She hated it when that happened. "But...what about Nara?! What if she doesn't show up?"
Sarunte frowned and thought for a moment. Then he brightened. "When my cousin Daisuke became a chuunin, his two teammate were still genin, an' they just borrowed another genin from another team or something! If Nara doesn't show up, maybe we can get Reni-kun to join us!"
Haruna stared at Sarunte, somewhat relieved at the idea of Nara not being their only chance to get in, but somewhat horrified by the idea of being in the same team as Reniko.
"Or...or…OR…we could as Koru…or Mitsu." Haruna suggested.
Sarunte frowned. "But I wanna ask Neko-kun."
Sakura looked up. "Quit your talking. Go back to training!" Sakura sat back down, and couldn't help but smile to herself. It had felt good to hear Sarunte defend her, even if Sarunte had to go and blab away her life to do it. Who knew, maybe they would be able to pull themselves together in time, to achieve something truly…remarkable.
To Be Continued