Unforeseen Consequences

Chapter 3: Backfire

Mere hours after a bloody battle with Neji, Naruto found himself faced with a far more daunting challenge: searching for acceptable clothing for the gathering with Team Ten at a fancy restaurant the blond never would have set foot in normally. After Ino had asked him along he had ran into Sakura and told her that Team 10 was going to take out Team 7. Sakura was surprised but said she would track down Sai, while Naruto took a shower. He was after all a bit dirty and sweaty from that training.

Of course he hadn't known that Ino had only meant to ask him not his team, he thought since all of Team 10 was going all his team was as well, it made sense to him at least.

Naruto knew enough about the Amaguri that he knew he needed to dress properly. Opting for a simple, vibrantly red Water-country shirt he'd picked up while journeying with Jiraiya, Naruto nervously did up the golden-colored ties which served as the front of the shirt before pulling a pair of loose black slacks from his wardrobe. He tied the pants off at his ankles using the plain black ties, standing up to take in the effect. With the black slippers, it wasn't too bad. In fact... he looked kinda dashing. Like the hero in a martial arts story he'd once read as a kid.

He smiled at the overall effect. Aside from his unruly blond hair, an ever-defiant mass which refused to bend before the tyranny of either comb or brush, he looked every part the gentleman. With a lovely lady at his side he'd even pass for good company. The blond boy fiddled with the stiff cuffs of the shirt, playing with the golden-hued pegs.

Glancing in the mirror a second time, he was tempted to find something a little less refined, now that he thought about it. Perhaps he was over-dressed. He didn't want to look like an idiot if Shikamaru showed up in a chunin vest. Then again, the lazy bastard managed to look cool in the outfit: Naruto dreaded the day he'd wear it.

Naruto's meandering thoughts were interrupted by a knock at his apartment door. The lovely lady who would give the rest of Konoha the illusion that he was socially passable.

"Sorry, Naruto. Sai had something to do and couldn't make it tonight. So I guess it's just going to be the two of us with Team 10 for dinner tonight," Sakura smiled weakly, apologetic. Naruto waved off her concerns, instead focusing on the enchanting effect her refined blue dress had on her figure. It was demure, without making her look old. The blue was even a light enough shade not to clash with the pink of her hair, currently combed and curled out at the ends in a rare defiance of her vow to stop caring for her looks in preference to caring for her ninjutsu.

"Don't worry, Sakura-chan," Naruto said with a smile. He stepped out of his apartment, locking the door behind him with a click. Pocketing his keys, he smiled at the pinkette. "Even if the six is reduced to five, it's fine."

"But, does Ino know you've invited your team with you to dinner?" Sakura asked, her eyes wide. Ino had offered to pay for Naruto, not the rest of his team. Some unconscious part of the green-eyed girl told her that the invitation hadn't been meant for herself or Sai. Some other part yelled defiance at the first, certain coming was a good idea.

"It's my treat tonight, Sakura," Naruto grinned, patting the deep pockets of his black pants. The welcome bulge of Gamachan rested comfortably in the pocket, waiting to be spent. Kakazu had had quite the bounty on his own head. When he got back and Tsunade had presented him with the cash, he had been surprised. It was a nice bonus besides helping to avenge Asuma, he didn't know him as well as Team 10 but he had liked him.

"Dinner tonight for you is my treat. I'm just happy that our two teams can sit down for a nice dinner and relax!" He told her smiling brightly.

oOo

Having disposed of Choji and Shikamaru for the night, Ino made her way to Amaguri with a broad smile on her face. She had told them that she had plans for the night which was fine with them. Choji was working on some family jutsu training. Ever since Asuma died he had been pushing himself a bit more lately. Shikamaru had just shrugged it off, saying it was fine with him. She knew that he would be too lazy to really care and was most likely just going to play Shogi with his dad or something.

The plan was really simple. By showing up by herself, she could just claim that Shikamaru and Choji had had other plans, which they did but might have dropped them if she told them the truth. So now she would be left alone with Naruto for the evening and would be able to work her charms on him with ease.

It was the perfect plan.

She couldn't know it, but walking towards Amaguri, both Naruto and Sakura sneezed.

oOo

Ino waited for her meal to arrive, glaring at her rival. The pink-haired girl, dressed in a totally gaudy, unflattering blue dress –at least in her opinion- sat across the small table from her. The way the golden threading of the dress was shaped, it was meant to look classy while drawing attention to the wearer's bust. Why did Naruto have to invite her along? Why the hell would she even come along? She sipped her tea as she considered the evil blue-clad creature, who was giving her a smug look in turn. She knew, of course. The small smile on her face was trying to be coy about it but Sakura's entire posture screamed personal satisfaction.

Sakura sipped her ice-water as she idly tapped her fingers on the table, trying to smother the grin fighting it's way to her face. So that's how it was. While she was pissed off that this blond hussy would try to move in on her teammate under her nose, she was greatly satisfied that she'd been lucky enough to be invited along. She knew the story about Choji and Shikamaru cancelling last minute was a lie. It was the lamest excuse to get him alone! Who did that girl think she was? Especially wearing such a skanky black dress! The low-cut neckline plunged dangerously, loosely covered by translucent silk. The high cut of her dress, mid-thigh, was likewise rendered decent only by the stockings! It was like she wasn't wearing anything at all! A more conservative dress like her own was far classier, the green-eyed girl concluded.

"They sure are taking their time with our food," Naruto commented from his position to Ino's right and Sakura's left, idly looking around the swanky restaurant, oblivious to the silent exchange taking place right in front of him. The focus of his attention was on the gnawing hunger in his belly and the pressure slightly below that.

"Sakura, how was work? You're looking tired tonight," Ino mentioned, smiling at the barb. Subtle enough to pass unnoticed beneath the blond boy's eyes, yet still cut the blue-garbed medic-nin: Sakura's eyes were strained, her lower eyelids ever so slightly dark from too many late nights at the hospital. Completely unlike her own well-rested eyes, unmarred by lack of sleep.

"I'm fine, Ino. Though you like you've seen a little too much sun," Sakura grinned, revelling in her own alabaster skin when compared to Ino's almost orange hue. Working in the hospital like she did, she was able to maintain a nice, pale complexion, allowing her pale hair to complement her pale skin. Ino's own sun-darkened hue clashed with her hair.

"Oh, no... This is just the result of going on too many missions recently. Oh, that's right, Sakura... You're so busy at the hospital you don't really get too many missions these days, do you?" Ino switched tactics, throwing her foe's lack of experience in her face. Naruto still wasn't paying attention, so she knew she could up her game. She paused, almost in thought. "How is your practice going? Have you learned any new jutsu?"

"I've learned plenty, Ino. After all... I'm the primary apprentice of the Hokage herself, remember? She's been taking the time to teach me everything she knows," Sakura added with a smirk. Ino wouldn't get her based on that. Being the Hokage's apprentice, she had certain advantages. Like learning ninjutsu tricks so obscure most jonin didn't know as much as she did.

"Hey, I'll be right back," Naruto stated, standing up and stretching before heading towards the washroom. Both girls watched him briefly, waiting until he was out of hearing before they turned back to openly glare at one another, abandoning the loosely-veiled facade of civility.

"All right Ino, what's the deal?" Sakura demanded, crossing her arms as she stared across the table at her friend. She gestured at Naruto's empty seat. "Why are you dragging him out for a date without even telling him what it is?"

"Jealous?" Ino retorted, leaning back in her chair and sipping her tea. She stopped glaring, her eyes gazing towards Naruto's chair with a fond look which surprised Sakura. The green-eyed girl's hostility wavered. "Look, Sakura... I tried to play a prank on Naruto. It backfired. I know... well, everything."

"Everything?" Sakura asked, taken aback. Not many people their age knew much about Naruto, especially the Kyuubi. She'd only learned about the nine-tailed demon a couple months previously and she was the Hokage's apprentice and the boy's teammate. She paused, searching carefully for the proper words. Maybe the blond girl was bluffing. "So you even know about Naruto's little problem?"

"You mean the Kyuubi?" Ino asked quietly, causing Sakura to gasp. The blond smiled to herself, satisfied that she'd surprised Sakura. The blond leaned forward, lowering her voice to just a whisper: She had to convince the girl that she was sincere, at least. "I tried to use Shintenshin no Jutsu on Naruto yesterday, Sakura. I got trapped in Naruto's mind and that monster inside him nearly killed me."

She had never seen the actual demon, but Sakura did remember the four tailed state Naruto had forced himself to go into. If that was less than half of the power of the Fox unleashed she couldn't being to imagine what Ino had seen and been through.

"What happened-" Sakura began, then stopped, leaning back speculatively. Naruto happened, obviously. Which meant... "What does Naruto think of this?"

"He doesn't know. He thought it was all a dream," Ino replied, waving a hand negligently. She paused, for a moment with a sigh. "Look, Sakura... I'm not messing with him. I'm not going to play with his heart or anything. I know exactly what I'm getting into with him."

"Yeah, but-" Sakura began, stopping as Ino's eyes flickered past her shoulder. Naruto returned to his seat, a wide smile on his face. Ever clueless to his surroundings, the pinkette mused that Naruto wouldn't notice anything if it wasn't trying to kill him, teach him powerful jutsu, or flavoured with ramen.

"Dinner's still not here? Man, they're slow," Naruto crossed his arms as his eyes swept across the restaurant, searching for their server. It had been a whole ten minutes since they'd placed their order!

"Now now, Naruto... It isn't like they're serving Ramen here," Sakura chided, her smile not quite reaching her eyes. Her eyes flickered back to Ino's face, and she was forced to hide her surprise when she saw that her friend's attention was on Naruto. As if they hadn't been talking seriously just a moment ago. Over Ino's shoulder, she saw dinner approaching. "Besides, it looks like it's done."

"Finally!" Naruto cheered, eagerly eyeing the food. As the blond boy dug into his meal, Ino's eyes met Sakura's over the flower arrangement in the center of the table. This wasn't over. Not yet. They turned their attention to their own meals.

oOo

Naruto yawned loudly as he, Ino, and Sakura walked along the side-streets and back alleys of Konoha as they made their way home. While this might sound dangerous to the average person, Konoha had a remarkably low crime rate: Konoha's various ninja residents having a remarkably low tolerance for, and a judiciously high ability to deal with, the occasional back-alley thug who tried to set up shop.

Such men were convinced to move on and forget they'd ever thought of staying in the first place. The spirited points made by the ninja rebuking them even meant that sometimes they were able to move on under their own power instead of being slung across the shoulders of an ANBU ninja.

Sakura and Ino exchanged a look as they walked, evaluating one another as they considered dinner. After the food had arrived, Naruto hadn't left the table, leaving them to spar with nothing more than veiled words and innuendo. They hadn't been able to discuss anything of substance.

Naruto was, of course, oblivious to everything.

They paused in front of the Yamanaka flower shop and Ino hesitated.

"Well, thanks for dinner, Ino-chan!" Naruto stated, smiling as he faced the blond girl. Sakura started at the implied connection in the form of address. Seeing Sakura's reaction, Ino grinned and snagged Naruto in a hug. "Eh, Ino-chan?"

"I just wanted to thank you for coming, Naruto! And thanks for bringing Sakura along, too! It would have been weird with just the two of us!" Ino hauled the grin back to a small smile as she pulled away from the hug, cheering internally at the shell-shocked look on the blond boy's face. She knew she was sending a bit of a mixed message: She knew she had to take it a little slower than normal. The poor boy didn't react well to certain forms of change. If Sakura's story about the mission in Demon Country was true, he was pretty clueless when it came to women.

"Yeah, almost like a date," Sakura edged in, her voice low and even. The green-eyed girl bored twin holes in the blond boy's back. Hint hint, idiot!

"No way, me and Ino-chan?" Naruto chuckled, turning to look at his teammate, and thus missing Ino sticking out her tongue at the pink-haired girl. He shook his head, turning back to the other blond in their trio. "That's just crazy!"

Ino winched at that, that was pretty harsh thing to say to a girl. Okay sure he didn't know how she felt but still, ouch.

"Yeah, you're right. That is crazy," Sakura said, taking advantage of Naruto's turned back to lash back with a grin of her own at her old friend. The blue-eyed girl's smile barely changed, just a slight tightening of the eyes. "Goodnight, Ino."

"Goodnight, Sakura," Ino replied, entering the flower shop and closing the door behind her. As tempting as it was to follow the pair as Naruto walked Sakura to her house, the blond girl knew she'd already pressed her luck enough for one night.

oOo

"That would have been funny though, eh?" Naruto pondered after a moment, walking in companionable silence with Sakura to her house. While it wasn't on the way, strictly speaking, it wasn't in the opposite direction, either.

"What?" Sakura asked, her train of thought derailed by Naruto's sudden question.

"Ino and me on a date: That would have been funny, right?" Naruto repeated, scratching his chin and glancing up at the stars above. He continued, not noticing the emotionless mask his companion's face was becoming at the sight of his small smile. "I mean, why would a girl like Ino date a guy like me?"

Sakura saw the smile on his face but lately she had noticed when he was forcing those smiles out. Is that was he really thought, that no woman would want to date him? Thinking back that she was the only girl he had asked out and all the rejections made her feel really bad at the moment. Of course she had agreed to one when he first got back, but it hadn't been anything special. Was it because of all those rejections she had given him that made him think no woman would want him? Or was he afraid no one would accept him with a demon inside of him?

Sakura's face turned slightly sad at the thought of Naruto all alone, she knew he had been like that as a kid. But she had been too consumed like all the girls with Sasuke to really take notice of anyone else.

Looking back, Naruto had changed a lot since he was a child. He was more mature and yet kept his child like abilities. He was sweet and kind, he was also a lot stronger than you'd expect. He knew the rasengan and also completed it, something the Fourth could never do. He always was surprising and he was never boring. The truth is, lately she had been thinking differently about him, maybe she had matured as well since his time away.

"Naruto you shouldn't think that." She told him seeing his confused face. "Trust me you're really a good guy, any girl would be lucky to have someone like you. So I don't ever want to hear something negative like that about you, understood."

Naruto blinked a moment but then he really did smile, it felt nice hearing something like that coming from her. Man, she's a lot nicer to me since we were little. I think I like this Sakura better, too bad she most likely still likes Sasuke. I will keep my promise to bring him back and we can all be together again. I just wished she liked me more.

As they walked on he was rethinking that joke about dating Ino. Would someone like Ino like him? She was pretty, and he always did like how her hair covered part of her face, it gave his mysterious look. She had also filled out a bit more since he had been gone and no longer wore all those bandages. Was Sakura right that any girl would be lucky to have him?

The door to her house arrived far too quickly for Sakura. Resolving not to let Ino upstage her, Sakura hugged her teammate as well, drawing a huge blush and sputtered questions which reaffirmed her belief in his affection.

As the door to her home clicked shut, she went up to her room. She sat on her bed as she though back over the last little while. Why did she wanting to keep up with Ino in this, was it because she was a bit overprotective of her teammate? That she didn't want anyone to take Naruto away again? She had missed him when he had been gone, Those two and a half years seemed empty without him around. For the first few months she kept expecting to see his bright and smiling face.

Or was Naruto more than just a friend?

She thought long and hard about her feelings for Naruto, and she had to admit maybe she did like him. He was the perfect guy when she thought about it, she had already stated all his good points, sure he was loud, stubborn, a little naive, and maybe a bit perverted. But she liked those parts as well, that was what made Naruto, Naruto.

All those times she had refused him, maybe she had been making a mistake. Now Ino was moving on Naruto and it brought up all these feelings, jealousy being one of them. If Naruto was just a friend she wouldn't feel that, would she. Plus a bit of fear, fear that Naruto wouldn't be by her side anymore, if he went out with Ino that would mean less time with her and she would have missed her chance with him.

She nearly laughed at how life was so strange, Ino and her had lost a friendship over chasing after a boy that didn't seem to care for either of them. Now after they had repaired their friendship, they were going after the same boy. Only this was the boy they had both ignored and been less then nice to as children. Sakura didn't want to repeat the mistakes of the past, she would challenge Ino again, but this time she didn't want to ruin the friendship over it.

And this time she also planned to win. She already had a head start with Naruto, or did she? When was the last time he asked her for a date now that she thought about it. She quickly realized that he hadn't in awhile. A slight sliver of fear entered her heart, did he stop asking because he had given up on her?

If that was the case she needed to fix that as soon as possible. Next day would be the first day in her battle for Naruto's heart.

Meanwhile Naruto was very confused as he walked back to his place. Both Ino and Sakura had hugged him, he couldn't remember girls wanting to do that to him before. Both felt very nice as well, having them press up against him and wrap their arms around him. Ino smelled of jasmine he noticed while Sakura had smelt like cherries. Both he had felt soft skin against him and the warmth of their bodies was really nice.

Man, today has been weird but I hope they do that again. Still, I wonder why they hugged me? Oh well, maybe they were just being more friendly. Both have been nicer to me since I got back, maybe they just wanted to be better friends. Naruto grinned to himself at how things had changed since he was a kid. He had good friends and the village was starting to respect him now. No longer were there cold looks all around him, he actually got respect now from the village. He was on his way to accomplishing one of his goals.

When Naruto finally got home he went to straight to bed and for some reason he had a strange dream that night. It started normally with him as Hokage overlooking the crowd that was cheering him on. But this time was different, now Ino and Sakura came out of the crowd. They were saying something but he couldn't make it out. Then Sakura grabbed one of his arms saying something to Ino, while she grabbed his others saying something to her.

The next thing he knew both girls in a tug of war with him as the rope. He woke up from the dream when both girls had ripped his arms off.

He got up and looked around then made sure he had both arms. He looked at his clock to see it was still pretty late. So he got back to bed and sighed looking up at the ceiling. "Oh man that was weird. It was almost like those girls were fighting over me, but that wouldn't happen in real life would it?"

A late night crow was flying as it cawed in the night, almost as if it was an answer to his question.

Next up Chapter 4: Rivals

This one was a little shorter, but the next one will be longer.