Naruto: Alone

by Arganaut

The meeting between the council and Sarutobi did not go as planned.... how will Naruto survive growing up without the help of the Third?

19. Chapter 19

Naruto: Alone

Hey there people, its me Arganaut, and I'm here to provide you with the next chapter of Naruto: Alone! Anyway, got a lot of positive reviews from the last chapter, all of which I'm thankful for. Quite a few of you commented on my Elemental Chakra system, some of you going so far as to commend my 'ingenuity'.

I must say, however, that I did have help coming up with the system, from two good friends (FictionReader98 and Zoneshifter D)

Otherwise, all I have to say is thanks, and that I'll try to repeat such things in the future (hopefully some bits during this chapter will be good as well).

I also got a few responses from you all saying yfou'd check out the works of the authors I mentioned, and to that I'd like to say thanks for that as well.

But hey, you don't want generalized statements, you want cold, hard replies. So, let's get to that-

VFSNAKE- If I'm not mistaken, quite a few of my earlier Omakes did have Naruto coming out on top (one such being the omake which inspired the concept of the Street Fox Fan Club). And if it was just Naruto taking Sakura's hits, then yeah, it'd be a stereotype, but in this story Sakura has a pretty strong grip on both him and Sasuke (when she's angry) so I'd like to think I'm doing something a little original there.

Silver Warrior- YES! Let us overrun this site with Robot Chicken Jokes! MWAHAAHAH... I mean... yes, I am a fan as well.

Gabo 1602- Oh believe me, wind can be very interesting...

Vorago Atrox- Thanks for the compliments, though I did have some help with the elemental systems thanks to people aforementioned above. And I do hope that I will continue to entertain you, and everyone else.

soundless steps- Thanks, and believe me, it will definitely be worth the wait.

marc- Thanks for the high score, and I have been thinking of a few original techniques and jutsu.

FictionReader98- Thanks for another detailed and complimentary review. I hope whatever elements that made the previous chapter remain in not only this chapter, but throughout the entire rest of the story. And yes, the days when Captain Planet was a show I could actually enjoy were far more innocent days indeed. Above all else, you're welcome.

VampyreVixen68- Dude, I know they don't cure most diseases, but chill pills are quite good for insanity.

Paintball-Gamer- Even if they had rabies, I'm sure that Konoha has medicine for such situations... maybe... perhaps.... hopefully. Anyway, thank you for the review man, glad you enjoyed the chapter.

Dragon Man 180- Well, I can't say what exactly will happen during Wave, though let's just say I have quite a few changes in mind.

Zoneshifter D- Man, its been a LOOOOONG time since you've left a review for my story. I hope you'll enjoy this chapter as much, if not more than last.

adngo714- You know, I've gotten a lot of reviews like this, and I think its time I explained a little something. First and foremost, yeah, the Street Fox name and Street Rat name are similar. The reason being because when I was first righting this fic, I drew some inspiration from Aladdin. Of course, now I'm moving onto Canon events, and events of my own creation.

KenHz- Hey, thanks for reviewing, and leaving such a constructive review at that. You'd actually be surprised at the process I went through in order to get to this point when it comes to narration: at first I tried a 1st POV, but that ended up actually limiting how much input I could get from other characters. So then I tried multiple POVs, see if that could work, but that required so much switching around that it drove me nearly insane when I would try to read my work and figure out exactly who was telling it.

I guess the 3rd POV became my choice because it allowed me so much freedom in telling the story. And yes, I did get quite a bit of inspiration from old westerns, I was practically raised on old Clint Eastwood movies after all.

I appreciate your input, however, I must respectfully rebut: believe me, this might be a bit cut and dry, but I find that it cuts down on exposition, and cuts down on the amount of confusion.

But, anyway, thanks for the compliment, I like that you find the story interesting, and I will keep your review in mind. I hope to see you reviewing here again.

Well, that's all the reviews, now let's get onto the next chapter of Naruto Alone!

Chapter 19: Troublesome Discoveries

---------- Team 7 Clearing Grounds ----- 1:00 P.M ----- 2 Weeks Later ----------

"You three, keep it up, only fifteen minutes of this and then you'll be able to catch your breath..." A certain silver-haired Jounin spoke out from behind his favorite book as he watched his three pupils go about their exercises. We come upon Team 7's training pretty early in the afternoon, the three Genin pouring their time and effort into their exercises whilst the only Jounin in the clearing watched them from behind his book. Kakashi Hatake made sure to keep a close eye on all of his students, after all, the exercises they were doing could end up injuring them if some accident would occur.

As the scarecrow watched his students train, he recalled the previous two weeks. After having tested their chakra types, Kakashi went about analyzing just how in control of, and how skilled, his charges were when it came to their chakra, a rather long and, at times, boring process, needlessly extended for over a week because of the now mandatory missions his team was forced to go on every single day. Three days ago, however, Kakashi had a good lock on their chakra: how much they had, how much control they possessed, and, considering their elemental chakra types, how he should go about training them.

Even before the tests, Kakashi had certain feelings about what the results would end up being, feelings that proved, for the most part, correct. In Sakura's case, not only had the least amount of chakra in the group, but also far less chakra than he initially hoped she had. This was bad, considering her elemental affinity for earth. Earth jutsu not only required great control to force one's chakra into the ground, but also a great amount of chakra in order to force the earth in the ground into the desired jutsu. Fortunately, Sakura had the control... unfortunately she had to get her stamina up.

Sasuke, in the meantime, proved to be much closer to being able to use jutsu for both of his elements. With both a lightning and fire chakra type great amounts of chakra were needed to perform, Sasuke's control was a matter of great importance. After all lightning required significantly more chakra control than fire. Seeing as how the boy was already capable of using fire jutsu, Kakashi saw it fitting to get the boy started on being able to use his lighting chakra. He'd have to have his chakra control increased though, and would require a huge leap in it.

Then there was Naruto, who fit his elemental affinity so well it was almost serendipitous. A majority of wind jutsu required very little chakra control, and only needed a horde of one's elemental chakra to activate... it was almost as if these jutsu were tailor made for the Street Fox. Naruto's reserves were great, at levels that most ninja could only dream of achieving, so exhaustion from techniques would be the least of Naruto's problems... however performing them was going to be another matter entirely. It wouldn't be a matter of control, mind you... but it would be a manner of being able to properly use hand seals to mold the chakra for the seals.

So, he put them on training programs to help try to fix this, and they've been at them for the past three days. He looked over at Sasuke, who was standing on top of a river, sweating bullets as he held onto the Ram seal, the sight of the Uchiha becoming so stressed out by his training caused the last Hatake to chuckle from behind his book. The water walking was a good chakra training exercise on its own, forcing the person trying to perfect it to constantly adjust to the moving surface of the water, without sinking an inch, by pushing of chakra in a large enough amount (and a changing amount at that) towards the water, without pushing in so much that the ninja would be wasting it. On top of that it was also good practice for lightning jutsu since a major factor of using a lightning jutsu was pushing out a constant amount of chakra to keep them active.

It was also good for stamina... and he was able to see Sasuke fall into the river ever few minutes. Always a nice way to keep one's self entertained. With that, Kakashi's gaze wandered over towards Sakura, looking up at the pink haired girl as sweat bullets thanks to the exercise he decided to put her through. For Sakura, Kakashi focused mainly on her chakra supplies, and how to increase them. Of course one of the best ways to do this was through tree climbing. Tree climbing by itself would've been good for most people, as the mere act of running up and down the side of a tree while balancing out the chakra in their feet would be tired for most. Unfortunately Sakura was not most people. Her control of her chakra was so great that she could effortlessly do the regular exercise... so this forced Kakashi to add some difficulty to the mix.

Now looked on as the pink haired kunoichi used her chakra to stick upside-down on a branch, spouting off sweat as she was also forced to hang onto weights, each weighing about twenty pounds. The girl's face had, by this time, turned a dark red as she looked down at Kakashi, giving him a look so nasty that he thought she was hoping he'd come over just so that she could drop the weights on his head. Possible murderous intent aside, this was good for Sakura. It would take a long time before she'd get enough chakra to perform any earth element techniques... but she was on her way.

Finally, Kakashi looked over to Naruto, who was currently going through the same set of seals he'd been going through for the past few days. Naruto needed only a small amount of additional chakra training before Kakashi decided to move him onto actually learning a jutsu... though, calling this technique a jutsu severely pushed the definition of the word.

Wind Release: Gust was a weak, weak D-Rank jutsu; when the user finished the seals and slammed their hands together, a small whirlwind would be forced from their palms, and towards the intended direction. The main, and practically only use, for this jutsu was to help Genin learn how to use their wind chakra, and to get them ready for other wind techniques. There were other ways of training, of course, like trying to cut a leaf in half with just your chakra.

However, Kakashi wasn't ready to teach Naruto the techniques which required that level of control... nor did he think his more... active student would have the patience to 'cut a damn leaf in half'. For now, Kakashi merely wanted Naruto to learn the more chakra-mass focused techniques, and as such learning Gust would help push the blond along the path.

The other plus was that Naruto was truly excited about this training... well, he was at first. Now, as the boy once again tried to activate it, he was just becoming very frustrated. The silver-haired Jounin looked up into the tree to see the kunai he had jammed into one of the branches a few days earlier. Kakashi had left Naruto with a very specific goal: use the jutsu to force the kunai from the branch. Of course Naruto first thought that this would be a piece of cake... though, even now, the former Street Fox was proving Kakashi's original diagnosis of his weakness correct. Naruto was having a lot of trouble using the seals to mold his elemental chakra.

This wasn't a cake walk to be sure: coming out of the Academy most Genin are only taught the basic ram seal in order to perform their low-level techniques, the Chunin at the Academy leaving it to the Jounin to teach the students about elemental chakra, something Kakashi now wished he could talk to the Chunin about.... with a very point knife present.

Still, Naruto was making some progress. At the very beginning the boy could barely even get a small breeze out. At least now he was able to create some semblance of the actual jutsu... but each time he used the jutsu, he couldn't send it towards the direction of the kunai. With that thought, Kakashi merely shrugged as he walked back to his spot, and turned his attention back to his book, leaving his pupils to their own business.

Of course, their business, as the end of their current training drew to a close, was inwardly voicing their frustrations over their training, the Genin of Team 7 muttering what could only be curses under their breaths as they held out for those last few minutes. As each of them began to finish up, they each thought over what had been happening, and what they had been planning.

The former thief in the group was bored. Plain and simple. There was good reason for this too, after all, Naruto had been used to his life being nothing but one spontaneous action after another: going out to steal, being chased through town, either successfully evading the Chunin or just completely embarrassing them as they tried to catch him. Now he didn't need to steal anymore, those village-crossing chases were no longer there for him to, as sick as it might've sounded, enjoy, and he had gotten pretty settled into his routine these past couple weeks of training and missions.

The blond had hoped to solve this boredom by trying to learn this jutsu... but the only thing the jutsu was managing to do to him was frustrate him to no end, a point punctuated when Naruto once again slammed his hands together to try and activate the jutsu, only to have the gust of wind head to the far-right of the kunai. Naruto cursed loudly once again as he flashed through the seals, preparing for another go.

The pink-haired kunoichi in the group had been busy with two things. The first of which was training. Quite simply the stronger she got, the more of use she could be to the group, and the more of use she could be to the group, the more Sasuke would, hopefully, notice her. However, her crush wasn't her only teammate she had been keeping on her mind.

Ever since their first set of missions, Sakura had also been puzzling over her blond teammate. The idea of actually being asked, by the Hokage, to become a ninja of the village was something that sounded so outlandish Sakura didn't think it possible, yet according to Naruto that's what happened. So, in an effort to clear up the mess and confusion, the green-eyed girl took it upon herself to figure out why and how... though, so far she had gotten absolutely nowhere.

Sakura wasn't going to give up though, after all, she prided herself as the most intelligent of the kunoichi coming out of the Academy that year, and she wasn't about to let this mystery slip between her fingers.

Lastly there was the brooding Uchiha, who was currently just trying to stay up out of the water for the remaining time. Sasuke had to admit, ever since Kakashi had shown the abilities of the elements two weeks ago, he had been looking forward to the chakra training that would inevitably take place. It wasn't just because of learning how to use lightning jutsu and to greatly increase his level of chakra control, two 'weapons' that should prove very... very useful against him...

However, there was one thing that stuck in Sasuke's mind as he recalled Kakashi's explanation of the chakra elements. That lightning jutsu he used... the ball of sparks and lightning he had concentrated in his hands. While the black-haired young man couldn't have known what it did exactly, he knew it couldn't have been just for show... there was too much chakra concentrated in that little space.

While Sasuke didn't see the exact seals used for the jutsu, he did make out that it was a three seal combination. Sasuke smirked, as soon as he learned how to properly use his lightning chakra, he was going to immediately start trying to figure out which three seals Kakashi had used...

Suddenly, both Sasuke and Sakura were pulled from their thoughts as Naruto loudly shouted in frustration, the blond grinding his teeth in frustration as he cracked his neck.

"That's it! I'm doing it this time!" He shouted as he quickly flashed through the seals; dragon, horse, monkey, rat, pouring obscene amounts of chakra into each seal, which caused Kakashi to sweat drop.

'Oh boy...' The scarecrow thought as he moved a little bit to the left. Naruto cracked his neck as he pulled his hands to the side, feeling the chakra building up in his hands.

"This is it!" Naruto shouted as he slammed his hands together... and ended being blown back by the force of the winds produced by the jutsu, slamming into the tree that stood just behind where Kakashi had been standing, said Jounin merely covering his face with the book to avoid the debris being blown towards it. As the winds died down, both student and teacher glanced to see the effects of the 'failed' jutsu became apparent.

Sakura's hair had been blown straight out to the side, Sasuke was now just barely standing on the edge of his toes to avoid falling forward into the water, and the tree that had the kunai lodged in it had all of its leaves blown off... but the kunai remained safely lodged in place.

"Damn it!" Naruto shouted as his left eye twitched, a vein popping up on his forehead as Kakashi sweat dropped.

"Alright... I think that's enough for now..." Kakashi said slowly, as he began walking over towards Sakura. Sasuke released a breath he had been holding after nearly being blown over, resulting in him immediately sinking into the river, staying under for a second to cool down before swimming back to the shore. Meanwhile the scarecrow had managed to untie the weights from the kunoichi's wrists, pulling them away from her as she gracelessly dropped to the ground, landing on her back as she took several deep breaths, her energy almost completely spent.

Kakashi looked at his students with a small smile reaching his lips. Training till exhaustion or, in Naruto's case, injury... 'Hehe... Reminds me of the old days.' Kakashi thought to himself as he slung the weights effortlessly over his shoulder, walking away as Sakura slowly stood up, trying to force her hair to go back down after having been blown straight out. In the meantime the emotionless Uchiha had finally dragged himself out of the river, standing up somewhat shakily as he shook the water out of his hair. Naruto was just slowly standing up, cracking his back as he tried to get the kinks out of it after his 'crash landing'.

"Alright you three, good training today, I think we made some good progress..." Kakashi said, throwing the weights out to the side, making a quick mental note to come back to pick them up later. While his students responded with series of groans, Kakashi smiled. "At any rate, get up, it'll soon be time for missions." This was met with even more and louder groans, causing the silver-haired Jounin to laugh a little bit.

"Oh don't be so glum, today's going to be a bit different..." Kakashi quickly added, though he was more or less waved off by his students. The Jounin shook his head as he looked up at the sun... they should show up soon enough.

Joint missions and joint training exercises weren't uncommon things in Konoha. It was heavily influenced by one of the base values of the village: that the ninja were all stronger, and would become stronger, when they worked together. Often times teams came together to work with one and other because the Jounin thought that their students could learn something from either the other Genin in the team, or the other team's Jounin. Other times it was just a rather repetitive practice to 'bring each new generation of Genin closer to one and other'... which Kakashi either found annoying or completely useless, depending on the teams involved. In fact, Kakashi wasn't exactly thrilled about working with this particular team for the purpose that his fellow Jounin had in mind, helping his team get a bit more energized about their jobs as ninja... though, maybe his students could pick up something along the way as well.

Suddenly, his ears perked up as he smiled, looking down towards the south-east of the forest clearing. It took his Genin a few more moments, in their exhausted state, to feel the other sources of chakra coming towards them. Almost as suddenly as Team 7 sensed the approaching persons, three others wearing the Konoha headband walked into the clearing, causing all three Genin in Team 7 to sweat drop...

"Hello there Asuma." Kakashi said quite simply, said Sarutobi family member smirking as he took a deep drag on his cigarette.

"Hey there Kakashi." Asuma said in his normal gruff voice, Shikamaru, looking as bored as ever, and Chouji, who was currently munching on some chips, standing right beside him... but there was someone missing, someone Sakura was now looking around for.

"Hey... where's Ino-pig?" The pink-haired kunoichi said cautiously, while Sasuke also kept his eyes peeled for said blond girl. Suddenly, the bushes behind the Uchiha rustled, and before he could even turn to see what it was, the kunoichi of Team 10 jumped out from the shrubbery and grabbed onto Sasuke's back, wrapping her arms around his neck as she squealed.

"Hi Sasuke-kun!" Ino Yamanaka gushed as she held onto her crush, Sasuke trying to correct his stance to carry the new weight, not an easy task considering he just spent so much time water walking. Sakura, forgetting any exhaustion she may have felt, immediately prepared to eviscerate Ino.

"Get off of him Ino-pig, you're going to end up crushing him!" Sakura shouted at her 'rival', Ino immediately snapped her head over to her pink-haired nemesis, jumping off of Sasuke in order to look at Sakura face to face, this of course had the side effect of pushing Sasuke right into the dirt.

"Can it billboard brow, can't you see Sasuke-kun and I are having a moment?" The blond fan girl shouted back, Sakura scoffing as she shook her head.

"In your dreams Ino!" Sakura shouted back while Ino just began laughing derisively.

"How can that big head of yours be so empty? Can't you see Sasuke just plain old likes me?" The Yamanaka fired back, causing a vein to form on Sakura's head. In the next moment, a huge fight erupted between the two girls, Sasuke having been smart enough to make space between himself and his two fan girls moments beforehand. Course, this sight was a bit new to Kakashi. Sure, he had heard about rather raucous these two caused back at the Academy through word of mouth, but he never really imagined that it'd be as bad as this.

"Were they always like this?" Kakashi asked, leaning over to Naruto who merely shook his head.

"No... this is tame compared to the old days." Naruto whispered back to Kakashi, who merely nodded his head in acknowledgment while walking over to the remainder of Team 10, shortly followed by Naruto.

Shikamaru Nara stood, watching his teammate and her rival verbally battle it out, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he did. "Troublesome..." The shadow manipulator said in a somewhat grainy tone, whilst his best friend, a heavy-set Chouji Akimichi, merely disengaged himself from the situation, content to munching on his bag of potato chips.

Asuma merely sighed as he looked towards Kakashi, smoking his cigarette before he began speaking. "Young kunoichi, eh Kakashi?" Asuma finally stated as he looked over at his silver-haired compatriot, who merely shrugged.

"She was being so good too." Kakashi said with a small chuckle, putting his book back into his kunai pouch. "So, do you want to keep on chatting, or should we actually get down to work?" Kakashi asked his fellow Jounin, who merely nodded as he took one last deep breath of his cigarette, before tossing the butt to the ground.

"Might as well get right to it." Asuma replied, smoke still escaping his lungs as he reached down into his pouch for the mission scrolls he had procured beforehand. "Ino, that's more than enough." The smoker called out to his team's female member, who promptly stopped her arguing with Sakura and ran over to him, but not before sticking her tongue out at Sakura.

"Sasuke, Sakura, you too, we have mission work to begin." Kakashi quickly shouted before Sakura could do anything in retaliation to Ino, forcing the girl to cool her jets as she made her way over to the group, along with Sasuke. As the two teams finally re-assembled, Kakashi and Asuma stood together, both Jounin muttering back and forth between each other, though this was interrupted from time to time by small chuckles. Finally, when the two were done speaking secretively, Asuma stepped forward, a small smirk on his face as he twirled the mission scrolls around.

"Alright kids, listen up. Today, if you haven't already guessed, Team 7 and Team 10 will be doing some missions together today, three in fact." Asuma explained, as he looked at the three scrolls with a bored look. "However, after some discussion with Kakashi, we decided that having all six of you go on these missions all at once would be excessive, so we decided to split you all up further, get all these missions done at once." The smoker said with a growing smirk, one that caused Team 10 to suddenly feel... well, a bit uncomfortable.

With a quick flick of his wrist, Asuma tossed the first scroll at Sasuke, before pointing at both the Uchiha and Shikamaru. "Shikamaru and Sasuke, you two'll be doing some community service for Konoha by picking up the litter around town." The smoker quickly said, causing both Sasuke and Shikamaru to look at him with 'you've got to be kidding me' looks, ones that Asuma didn't take kindly too.

"Did I stutter, skidaddle!" Asuma shouted at Shikamaru and Sasuke, causing the two young Genin to nod quickly, before running off to do their jobs. Kakashi shook his head at his compatriot/friend, before suddenly the smoker tossed the second scroll to Sakura and Ino who, thanks to not having paid attention to Asuma's movements,choosing to pay a glance to Sasuke's retreating form instead, ended up with the scroll knocking Ino in the head, causing the blond girl to stumble into Sakura.

"Hey, watch it Ino!" The pink-haired kunoichi said in an indignant manner, causing her rival to glare at her. Before the two could exchange words Asuma whistled, catching their attention.

"Girls, before you two go for each other's throats, I though it'd be good for you two to know that you're going to be doing a mission together." The smoking Jounin said, which prompted the two kunoichi to look at him with a look not too dissimilar to the one Shikamaru and Sasuke had given him mere seconds ago. "The Aburame clan have requested some assistance, so get going: their address is in the scroll." Asuma said sternly, which was enough to get Sakura and Ino to nod and be on their merry way... of course, as soon as they were out of Asuma's vision that merry way turned into a rather shouty and angry way.

"Two-to-one says they kill each other before they make it to the Aburame compound..." Kakashi said with a bit of a chuckle, prompting Asuma to sigh.

"I know you're joking, but I'd seriously take those odds..." The young Sarutobi said with a sigh before looking at Chouji and Naruto. "Alright boys, that just leaves you two." Asuma said as he tossed the final scroll to the two boys. "Owner of rather nice restaurant is renting his place out to a private, rather small, dinner party today and doesn't have enough employees to bus and wait the tables: you two are going there to help out around the restaurant. The owner of the restaurant has explicitly stated for there to be no mischief while you're working..." Asuma said, as both he and Chouji gave Naruto a small look, the blond's left eye twitching as he sent back a rather dark look.

"What?" Naruto asked, somewhat irritated by this. Though, his irritation was quickly cut off when he saw Kakashi giving him a 'cool it' look. Naruto took in a small breath through his nose, and raised his hands in defense. "You don't have to worry about me, I won't do anything, promise..." He stated in a rather bored manner, as if he had said the same thing several times to several people now... which he had over various missions. Asuma and Chouji nodded, before suddenly the smoker turned to his chubby student.

"By the way, Chouji, the 'mischief' also goes for you: no eating off of plates while your busing them. Also, the owner has said you two will be rather busy, so don't bet on having too long of breaks... if any." Asuma said slowly, which caused Chouji to, not only pale considerably, but to also slow up on how fast he was eating the potato chips, wanting to make them last. Course, when he reached back into the bag, and felt that there was not a single chip left, the boy groaned in disappointment.

"Oh man....." The Akimichi whined as he rolled up the empty bag between his hands, ready to throw it away when he had the chance. Asuma merely rolled his eyes at his student, before waving them off.

"Now, get along you two." The smoking Jounin said as Naruto and Chouji nodded, running off towards their mission destination. As the two Genin ran off, Kakashi and Asuma watched them, before looking at each other. "So, how do you think our teams will do?" Asuma asked as he threw away the butt of his old cigarette, and immediately pulled out a new one. The question caused the scarecrow to shrug.

"Well... we're sending Shikamaru and Sasuke, who are, respectfully, very lazy and very proud, off to do dirty manual labor. We're sending Ino and Sakura off on a mission... enough said right there. Finally, we're sending Chouji, an Akimichi in every since of the word, to a restaurant, with the fact that he'll likely be unable to eat there." Kakashi listed off, cracking his neck. "They're pretty much doomed..." The silver-haired Jounin joked... though, Asuma raised his eyebrow as he listened.

"What about Naruto?" The bearded Jounin inquired, causing Kakashi to look right at him.

"Naruto's a bit of a mischievous kid, I won't deny that: however, if there's one thing I know without a shadow of a doubt is that he's not going to risk his mission by goofing around... after all, his pay is at stake if he or Chouji messes up." Kakashi said with a small chuckle, Asuma shrugging as he lit his new cigarette up.

"Good point." The smoker relented as he took a deep drag, Kakashi merely smiling underneath his mask. "So... what do we do for the rest of the day?" Asuma asked as he looked at his friend, the scarecrow merely shrugging as he once again pulled out his book.

"I was thinking of catching up on my reading." Kakashi said with a curved eye, causing Asuma to sweat drop.

"Haven't you read those things several times already Kakashi?" Asuma asked curiously, Kakashi merely glancing over at the smoker.

"Your point?" The masked Jounin inquired, which only received a sigh from Asuma.

"I swear, porn addict doesn't even begin to describe you..." The bearded Jounin, and addict himself (to tobacco), commented, earning a small snort from his masked friend.

---------- Streets of Konoha ---------- An Hour Later ---------

Troublesome. That's the only word Shikamaru thought could appropriately describe his current situation. As he sat on a bench, a bag not even one-tenth of the way full of trash to his side, staring up at the sky with a dis-interested look, the Nara silently cursed Asuma, having by now guessed that his sensei had foreseen how this current mission set up would work.

After all, if there was one thing Shikamaru was not fond of when it came to these D-Rank missions was the amount of pointless busy work it would have him do.

This train of thought would always lead Shikamaru to the same place without failure. The shadow manipulator would think of all the D-Rank missions he'd have to do, from baby-sitting, to catching cats, to gardening, to picking up trash off the street, his current mission... he'd realize that these were all jobs someone else should've been doing, and that they weren't jobs for a ninja. Still, then Shikamaru would think about what jobs did belong to ninja, and those would've been even more bothersome to do. So, then the Nara would think that while the D-Rank missions were troublesome, he could at least get away with lazing about and doing nothing.

So, that's what he was doing now. Shikamaru was currently sitting on a bench along one of Konoha's many streets, looking up at the clouds as he tried to just sit and relax. Of course, in this case, there'd be one thing that would always stop him before he could get completely comfortable...

And that one thing just so happened to throw an empty bottle at Shikamaru's head, snapping him out of his daze.

"Hey, baka! Get up and actually do something!"

Sasuke Uchiha... the one guy who was more troublesome than Ino. At least with Ino, she'd only shout at him to do something for a few minutes, get frustrated, and then immediately stomp off, yelling about how lazy he was. Sasuke Uchiha, on the other hand was.... well, persuasive would be a word to describe what he was. Sadistic would've been another good word.

When shouting at him didn't work, Sasuke would then threaten bodily harm to the Nara. When that didn't work... well, he would actually make good on his threats. The Uchiha would throw pieces of trash at the Nara in order to snap him out of his thinking, the empty bottle only being one example thus far. So far he had thrown old rotten apples, old pieces of wood, either from furniture or something else.... shit, he had even thrown a WHOLE WATERMELON at him once... why the hell someone threw out a whole watermelon was still beyond Shikamaru's ability to guess.

However, that was beyond the point. Currently Shikamaru was giving Sasuke a bit of a dirty look as he nursed the bump that had unceremoniously formed on his head after being hit with an empty bottle as he once again began half-heartedly picking up pieces of trash with a stick.

"Troublesome..." The shadow manipulator groaned as he picked up a crumpled up piece of paper and tossed it in the garbage, Sasuke carefully watching to make sure his 'partner' for this mission was actually doing his job, before getting back to actually picking up trash himself.

Sasuke was pissed, there was no getting around that. The Uchiha already didn't like doing D-Rank missions: to him they were just a collection of rather silly or outright stupid tasks that wasn't befitting for an Uchiha. However, this was a whole new low... he was actually being reduced to picking garbage off of the street! This was the lowest of the low jobs he could've possibly been given! If it were up to Sasuke, he'd have thrown the little stick with the metal spike at Kakashi, and told him to pick up trash himself...

Unfortunately, it wasn't Sasuke's choice in the matter. As a ninja, he was bound to go through with the missions handed down to him by his sensei... but that didn't mean he liked it...

Oh no... if anything he hated doing this as much as the Nara did... but that only meant that he was going to make sure Shikamaru did just as much work as he did... if Sasuke was going to be in a constant state of agitation because of how much he loathed this job, then his 'mission partner' would be as well. Speaking of which, Sasuke turned his head to look back at the shadow manipulator... only to notice that Shikamaru was staring at the clouds again. Sasuke glared at the back of his fellow Genin's head... and slowly picked up a rotten tomato.......

"What the- WHAT THE HELL?!"

----------- Aburame Household ----------

Shibi Aburame stood in the middle of the road across from his clan's home, as still as a statue as he waited for whatever Genin that would be sent his way to assist with the clan's business. Normally he would have Shino help him with this sort of work... however, with his team booked solid on missions for today, Shibi needed some others to help him. The stoic Aburame wandered lightly who would be the Genin sent to help him when:

"-uh Ino-pig! Sasuke-kun likes me!"

"Right billboard brow, and pigs will fly!"

"Wouldn't mind sending this pig flying with a punch right now!"

Shibi was snapped out of his thoughts as he looked over to his right, and immediately spotted two female kunoichi walking his way. The Aburame clan head raised his eyebrows as he saw Ino Yamanaka and Sakura Haruno making their way towards him, with the scroll he had filled out for the mission in the pink one's hand. Shibi recognized them as classmates of his son... though, he could've sworn Shino said that they had ended up on different teams.

'Must be a joint team exercise of some kind...' Shibi thought, as he simply shrugged off this rather minor anomaly. The Aburame turned to face the two girls as they continued walking along while shouting at each other. They eventually bumped into Shibi, who just stood as still as he had before, and then immediately snapped their attentions to the world around them. Immediately, both girls blushed at having bumped into the man, and bowed their heads.

"Sorry" Both kunoichi said in unison, as Shibi merely nodded, glad that these girls had manners when dealing with someone outside of each other.

"Apology for having bumped into me is accepted." Shibi said in a monotone manner, one that was a bit deeper than even Shino's, which made both Ino and Sakura pale a bit. "Now then, if you two are done wasting time by standing there and staring, there is work that needs to be done." Shibi said as he turned and began walking back towards the house.

Sakura and Ino looked beyond Shibi and saw the house: before realizing that this home was nothing like anything they had seen in Konoha before. The 'clan house' basically consisted of one large tear-drop shaped building, that sort of began twisting around towards the top. There were giant holes towards the top of the twisted top, four in fact, that circled around the very top of the cone.

Despite appearing to be made off the same material of the other buildings around Konoha, it was a different color, a dark brown color. As Shibi began walking up a flight of stairs towards the building's door... that's when Sakura and Ino noticed something even more odd. The Aburame clan building wasn't right on the ground: it was hanging from a cross-section of at least a dozen metal beams that were connected to an equal amount of large stone pillars that were on the outer-most parts of the clan grounds, helping to establish the border of the 'Aburame Clan Compound'.

"... kind of looks like some kind of hive..." Sakura mentioned, as Ino nodded. Both girls were aware of the fact that the Aburame clan was somewhat obsessed with bugs... but having never actually been in this part of Konoha to see where the Aburame normally lived... they would've never guessed that they actually built their house to be similar to an insect's home.

"You two coming?" Shibi asked as he stood at the top of the stairs, Sakura and Ino swallowing a lump in their throats as they began to ascend the stairs. As they got closer and closer to the 'hive building', the two girls' minds began sporadically imagining just what would be waiting for them on the inside of the building. Each imagined it looking like the inside of an actually hive, all sticky and gooey with a whole bunch of gunk smeared over what should've been furniture, with creepy crawlies all over the place. Indeed, these thoughts were making the girls become even more pale as their minds slowly entered panic mode. Though, before they could run away screaming their lungs out, they found themselves right beside of Shibi, standing at the door.

"You two should hurry up, there's no point in wasting time day-dreaming." Shibi said as he immediately began twisting the door knob around, Ino and Sakura trying to peel their eyes away from the doorway, so as to not see the unimaginable horrors of-

A nice foyer... wait, what?

Sakura and Ino stood there, jaws slacked as they stared upon the first room in the house; a foyer that had stairs that were on both sides of the room that lead to the second floor of the house, with a large pair of doors towards the back of the first floor of the room leading to who knew where. The room was well lit, with little candle-lamps hanging off the sides of the walls along the stairs and to the sides of both the entrance of the clan house, and the central pair of doors towards the back.

Course, it wasn't entirely normal: the walls were actually somewhat convex, curving outwards like the outside of the house. This had the effect of making the stairs that lead up to the second floor curve along with the wall, and forcing what windows that were in the room to be curved as well; making Sakura and Ino feel like they were in some sort of surreal painting. However, they noticed, the double doors were perfectly flat: telling them that there was much more behind the doors.

Aside from the strange structural designs, there was also the fact that there was so little furniture or decorations in the room: it seemed as if that if it couldn't serve some purpose, like the lamps providing light at night, it wasn't in this room... a theme that the girls suspected would be continued throughout the entire home.

"Sorry for the small mess: with most of the clan members out on missions now a days there's not much help to keep this place tidy." Shibi remarked as he walked towards the large double doors, causing both the girls to look around the room, back at Shibi, and then back towards the room. That's when Ino noticed a very tiny, very fine layer of dust that covered the little bit of furniture in the room, and the blond flower girl merely raised her eyebrows.

"What do you mean, its just a little dusty." Ino said, as the head Aburame looked back at her with a nod.

"Precisely...." Shibi said slowly as he opened the large set of doors, Sakura and Ino just giving each other a look, silently asking each other 'is this guy for real' before following said Aburame even deeper into the household. The next room behind the double-doors was much smaller than the foyer, and quite a bit darker. Only two little lamps helped to illuminate the room... though, there wasn't much to see. Indeed, aside from those lamps, the doors they had just walked through, and the new set of large doors on the other side of the room, there wasn't much to see.

Of course, then Shibi opened up the door to the next room; a room that was so dark that both the girls knew that as soon as they stepped into it, they wouldn't be able to see their hands in front of their own faces. There was no way, absolutely no way that they wou-

Then Shibi took off his sunglasses... an Aburame took off his sunglasses. Sakura and Ino stared at Shibi's back in amazement as, without even turning to look at the two girls, he spoke:

"Well, come on, the work is in here..." The clan head said coolly as he walked into the dark room, the two kunoichi only giving each other a quick look of excitement as they sprinted after Shibi, not believing that they were honestly going to get a chance to see what an Aburame set of eyes looked like. They had heard rumors, of course, but never before had they actually been able to see for their own eyes! Both girls knew that this would probably be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that would never present itself again.

As they made a mad-dash for Shibi, the bug-man merely stepped out of their way, causing them to dash right on by as he closed the door... enveloping the room in complete and total darkness. The sounds of the two girls tripping over each other and skidding across the floor are easily heard, as moans of pain can be heard from both of them.

"Jeez Ino-pig, watch where you put your hooves...." Sakura said to her rival in love, while trying to see if she could see anything in this darkness.

"Shut up! Knowing you, your giant forehead probably made you lose balance and fall all over yourself, and you just decided to take me down with you!" Ino retorted as both girls tried to glare at each other, a task made impossible without sight.

'What kind of Genin are these two....' Shibi thought apathetically as he walked over to the two of them, pulling out two pairs of glasses from his sleeve.

"My apologies: I am so used to coming in here with just clan members that I forget that you are not used to the darkness of this room like we are." The Aburame clan head said with an apathetic tone, similar to the one he voiced his personal thought in, as he gave each girl one of the glasses. The girls slowly moved the specs to their eyes, and were rather amazed by the immediate improvement in quality of their vision.

Yes, it was far from perfect: most of everything they were seeing was now colored with a bright yellow-green tone, and they still had some trouble making out the finer details, but these glasses at least allowed them to see where they were going. The two marveled at their new-found eyesight for a moment... before immediately remembering why they had sprinted into the pitch-black room in the first place.

They immediately spun around on their heels and looked right at Shibi, only to be immediately and thoroughly disappointed when they saw that he had put on a similar pair of glasses, the yellow tint on them hiding his eyes well. The girls looked downtrodden and depressed immediately following the reveal, causing Shibi's eyebrows to raise slightly.

"What?" The Aburame asked in his normal, bored tone, as both Sakura and Ino merely shook their head.

"Nothing sir." They each said in a disappointed tone, which Shibi merely shrugged off.

"Alright, then follow me, we need to get the Kikaichu egg-sacs to their new cages immediately..." Shibi said in a nonchalant manner, as Sakura and Ino immediately snapped to attention.

"Kikaichu..."

"Egg-sacs..."

Both girls slowly said these worlds one right after the other, as the finer details of the dark room were made clear by the glasses. Alongside the walls of the room were a long series of connect counters, with only two empty spaces in between the counters: one for the door Ino and Sakura has just walked through, and one for a locked door just to their right, leading to a different room. On these counters, however... were glass cages, each right beside the last..

Inside these cages were semi-transparent lumps of... hell, the two girls didn't know what! The only thing they could tell is that it looked soft, and had all this goo over it. Since they were transparent, the two girls could see the little, tiny eggs inside of the sacs, at least one-hundred eggs in the sac. There wasn't just one sac in each cage though, there were several, all grouped together. The two girls looked around, and noticed that the all of the counters had these cages with egg-sacs inside of them... except for one.

One cage had just one giant orb of stone with small craters on the surface of it, those craters themselves having small tunnels that seemed to go towards the center of the stone mass. Though, that wasn't the most disgusting part. Coming out of those tunnels, out of those craters, and out of those rocks... were those tiny eggs, and inside the cage, along with the rock and eggs, were tiny, tiny bugs, that were slowly wrapping those eggs in that gooey soft stuff...

Of course, Sakura's and Ino's reaction was immediate and powerful:

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

---------- Restaurant ---------- Six Hours Later ----------

"... that was boring..." Naruto said as he plopped himself down in a chair in a table removed from the party, cracking his neck as he looked over at the party guests. They had been working for the better part of six hours, busing tables, serving food, cleaning up messes, and throwing away trash, something that was, to Naruto, time consuming and boring all wrapped into one activity, especially considering the size of the party... which had peaked off at about sixty people, which had been keeping both him and Chouji working for the entire time, only just now finding time for a bit of a rest.

'Small dinner party my ass!' Naruto thought inwardly as he looked over at Chouji... who was, by now, sitting in the chair right beside Naruto... staring longingly at all the food being eaten by the party guests. Asuma had been right about the likely lack of breaks, what with this being their first break, and the party having been going on for about six hours, and Chouji... well, Chouji had been just as busy as Naruto, and right in front of food as well.

Naruto knew about the Akimichi's reputation for being big eaters, and often eaters at that... though, to Naruto, it still didn't excuse how the Akimichi right beside him was staring at each little bit of food that was being passed around, watching as each little mouthful of meat was swallowed... quite honestly, it was starting to creep Naruto out.

Just as Naruto was about to ask Chouji about his creepy obsession with the food, one of the party guests dumped a whole plate of meat into the trash, obviously having eaten too much already. Chouji's eyes seemed to narrow as he slowly stood up, Naruto only giving Chouji a dis-believing look.

"...." The Uzumaki said slowly, as he watched the rather chubby ninja lick his lips. "You wouldn't..." Naruto began as he slowly stood up as well, watching as the brown-haired Genin continued to just stare at the garbage can. "I know its been a long few hours... but you honestly couldn't... wouldn't... REALLY shouldn't..." Naruto stammered off, as Chouji just kept on staring. It was silent for a few seconds, and then, rather suddenly, Chouji made a mad dash towards the garbage can, Naruto easily catching the tubby boy, while quickly throwing him into a full-nelson.

"Come on man, its in the garbage! I haven't eaten food out of the trash in... I can't even remember!" Naruto shouted as he tried to keep the hungry Akimichi restrained, though slowly Chouji dragged both himself and Naruto towards the trash can.

"I don't care, I'm starving!" Chouji shouted back at the blond, who only grunted in a bit of annoyance.

"You don't even know what starving is!" Naruto said rather bluntly as he strained to hold Chouji back. The Akimichi took a deep breath as if about to try to retort, only to stammer as he quickly realized who he was talking to. This immediately calmed Chouji, which allowed Naruto to drag the boy back to his seat, the duo only getting some stares from everyone else in the restaurant. Both boys looked at the party guests, and gave an embarrassed apologetic look to them, before the guests began turning their attention back to the party.

Chouji, meanwhile, had gone from being amazingly obsessed about the food, to feeling rather sheepish at his outbreak. The Akimichi turned his head towards Naruto, bowing it a bit apologetically.

"Sorry about that... lost it there for a few seconds." Chouji quickly apologized, Naruto merely looking at the brown-haired boy before shrugging.

"Whatever, just be sure to keep a lid on it." The blond bluntly stated as he leaned back in his chair. Chouji, though a bit relieved that he hadn't stepped on metaphorically stepped on Naruto's toes, still felt like he had gone a bit far.

"Still, considering all the stories my dad told me about you..." Chouji began, as the blond merely waved him off again.

"Don't worry about it..." Naruto said in a rather bored tone as he yawned a bit. The brown-haired Genin just nodded as he turned his attention back to the party guests, both Genin just sitting at the table, waiting to be called again. After a short amount of time, however, the words of Chouji's last sentence sank into Naruto's skull, causing the blond boy to narrow his eyes a bit.

'Stories my dad told me about you... Stories...' Naruto thought to himself as he turned his head towards Chouji.

"What do you mean by stories?" The former Street Fox asked in a rather pointed manner, as his chubby mission-partner just shrugged.

"Well, you know, stories." Chouji began, causing Naruto to roll his eyes; thinking he meant diatribes about what a terrible person Naruto was, or how he was some kind of scum. "My dad doesn't normally talk about a lot of people like that, but he seemed to respect you a bit..." The Akimichi continued, causing Naruto's eyebrows to fly up, almost as if they were going to tear right off of his face.

"Respect?" Naruto asked, saying the word as if Chouji had said it in a foreign tongue.

"Well... yeah. I could never figure out why he respected you exactly, but, to me, he seemed to take a small shine to you... even after ya stole his food that one time." Chouji said, the blond Genin looking down to the side... this new revelation piling on top of the one his teammates gave him on their first day of missions.

'First I figure out the old man doesn't just offer up ninja positions to people... now Chouji's telling me his pops respected me...' Naruto thought to himself, before verbalizing the one question that was on his mind.

"Where was he then?" Naruto asked Chouji, who merely gave him a somewhat confused look. "If your dad took such a shine to me, why didn't he help me out? I mean, I'm not one for pity, but some food,clothes, or money... hell, anything would've been appreciated." The former street urchin said in a very irritable tone, as Chouji thought to himself for a few seconds.

"Well... that's.... a good question..." The Akimichi said with a shrug. "You'd have to ask my dad to know... even then I doubt there'd be much of an answer there..." Chouji continued, as Naruto just stared at him for a few seconds... before shrugging.

"Meh... not that big of a deal I suppose......" Naruto said in a very weak manner as he just looked forward, Chouji accepting that as an answer as he dropped the subject.

Naruto, meanwhile, hadn't quite gotten beyond thinking about the subject. For several minutes, Naruto puzzled over this newly acquired information... something he was beginning to grow quite annoyed with.

'I swear... when did my life stop adding up? A few weeks ago, it was simple: I had to survive on my own because most people hated that I had the Kyubi sealed in me, the adults would try to scare the kids into not liking me, and the only help I got was from Neji, Tenten, Lee, Hinata, Iruka, and the old man... and even then the old man only helped me because I would've been a good ninja..' Naruto thought as he tapped his chin.

'Now I learn that's... not really common practice for the old man to just ask people to become ninja, and on top of that, there were actually people, if only a few, who supported me outside of my friends and Iruka... some thing's not right here, and the nine-tails excuse isn't worth jack-shit anymore....' The blond thought to himself... before simply sighing and tossing his hands up in the air in exasperation.

'Whatever... I'm here now, I'm making good money... the past is the past...' The blond finished up as he cut off anymore thoughts on the matter... of course... that only left him with one thing:

"Boooooooooooooooooored....."

---------- Streets of Konoha --------- About An Hour Later ----------

Shikamaru wasn't the type of guy to get enthralled in one emotion or the other. The lazy Nara thought that getting upset, or obsessed, over something was just plain old 'troublesome' and that just letting a problem roll off your back was the easiest, and most stress-free, manner of dealing with them.

CLUNK

"Hey, idiot, stop staring at the ground and get to work!"

Of course, as Shikamaru was hit in the back of the head with yet another empty bottle, thrown by none other than Sasuke Uchiha, he was just about ready to make an exception to his normal 'stress-free strategy'. The irritated Nara, who's left eye was now twitching out of sheer annoyance, looked back at his equally aggravated 'partner', trying his best to restrain himself.

"Stop throwing trash at me..." Shikamaru said in a bit of a gravely tone, as Sasuke just scoffed.

"If you would actually do the work, I wouldn't have to keep throwing trash at you!" Sasuke retorted, as he did every single time Shikamaru would get uppity with him over the improvised projectiles he had been bouncing off of the Nara's head for the past several hours. The Uchiha was irritated, mostly because they were on their... what, seventh hour on the job, when it should've just taken them, two trained ninja, an hour or two, tops, to finish this up, and all because Sasuke had to keep an eye out on the lazier of the two, and make sure he did his work.

Shikamaru, still somewhat... somewhat wishing to avoid a conflict, turned back around and began picking up trash again. Suddenly the cloud-gazer was hit in the back of the head with an apple, that one 'attack' sending Shikamaru over the edge as he glared back at Sasuke.

"Hey, I was actually working!" The shadow manipulator shouted at Sasuke, who only chuckled in response to Shikamaru's exclamation.

"Just checking, dobe." The 'genius' Uchiha fired back, which only further fueled Shikamaru's, at this point, anger. Sasuke turned back around, a somewhat smug smirk still plastered on his lips as he began picking up trash himself. Within seconds the back of Sasuke's head met an old, rotten tomato, the smelly vegetable splattering itself all over the back of its target's head.

Sasuke stood there, unwilling to believe what had just happened to him, until he slowly felt the back of his head. The instance his hand felt the tomato juices, the Uchiha spun on his heal to face Shikamaru, who only wore a small grin as he tossed an equally fetid tomato in his hand.

"Di-Did you just do what I think you did?!" Sasuke stammered out in complete shock, having not expected such a move from the normally lazy Nara.

"Do what? You mean this?" Shikamaru said with a small grin, tossing the other rotten tomato at Sasuke, the vegetable splattering all over the still stunned Uchiha's face. Immediately the Uchiha brushed the remains of the old tomato off of his face, his onyx eyes glaring at the lazy Genin in front of him.

"You're going to regret that..." Sasuke muttered darkly as he quickly reached down for a random piece of garbage on the street, Shikamaru also quickly reaching down for some ammo. It was then that the trash war between Sasuke Uchiha and Shikamaru Nara began. The two Genin quickly began assaulting each other with random pieces of trash, cans, bottles, old food, and various other dumpster-goods were tossed between the Nara and the Uchiha.

After a few minutes, both reached back down to the ground, only to find that there was hardly any trash left on the street, aside from the bits of garbage they had already thrown. Both boys looked down to their respective bags, and before common sense could kick in to stop them, Shikamaru and Sasuke were digging into the bags, and began throwing trash at each other from said bags.

Slowly the street began to fill up with the trash the two Genin had been collecting for the past several hours, their effort and time being thrown away as their petty 'war' reached a new low. They reached into their respective bags, digging around for whatever ammo they could possibly get a hand on. Unfortunately for both, their bags had been completely emptied, the contents now scattered all around.

The two boys paled as they quickly realized that they had just erased all progress made thus far... but then immediately turned to glare at each other.

"This is your fault!" They both shouted at once. "My fault?! No way this is your fault!" They continued to scream at each other at the same time. Just as the shouting match was about to continue, however, both boys felt a sinister presence to their right, one that chilled both, but especially chilled Shikamaru, right to their very soul. Both boys slowly turned their heads towards the dark presence... only to be greeted with a very angry woman, with a very angry scowl on her face as she glared at the two boy.

"H-Hi... m-mom..." Shikamaru stammered a bit, as Sasuke looked between the two Nara.

'This is his mom?!' Sasuke thought to himself, completely stunned by the... well, rather overpowering presence this woman was putting off.

"Shikamaru..." Yoshino Nara said slowly, a small, pounding blood vessel appearing on her forehead as, in the blink of an eye, she grabbed her son up by his ear, lifting the boy up so high that his toes were barely touching the ground.

"OW OW OW OW OW OW OW!" Shikamaru began shouting as his toes barely scratched the ground, his ear just howling with pain as his mother looked him right in the eye.

"Do you see this mess...." Yoshino muttered out as she forced her son's head to look around, Shikamaru only shaking his head real quick to signify a 'yes' answer. "I thought I raised you better..." The 'troublesome woman', as Shikamaru would often refer to her as, said through teeth that were grinding against one and the other. "I want you to pick up every last bit of trash on the ground... with your bare hands!" Yoshino shouted, as he son looked at her with an indignant expression.

"What?! You've got to be- OW OW OW OW OW!" Shikamaru sentence was immediately cut off as Yoshino began bashing him over the head with a tiny, folded fan she had produced from her pocket, Shikamaru being dealt blow after blow... by his own mother! "Okay! Okay! You win!" Shikamaru shouted at Yoshino unceremoniously dropped him, Shikamaru immediately falling to his knees as he began picking up trash with his bare hands.

Sasuke, for his part, stood there with a small grin on his face, laughing at the lazy Nara's misfortune... that is, until, Sasuke found himself also began grabbed by the ear, the Uchiha actually being lifted off of his feet completely as Yoshino glared at him.

"And you! You're equally responsible for this mess! Get there down with my lazy son and help him clean it up!" The bossy Nara ordered Sasuke, as the Uchiha clan member just gave her an insulted look.

"Who are you to be bossing me around, you aren't my mo-OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW!" Sasuke suddenly howled in pain as he received the same fan treatment from Yoshino as Shikamaru had mere moments ago, Shikamaru not bothering to look up and watch the Uchiha be beaten by his mother, lest he receive yet another series of thwacks to the skull. "I give! I give! Uncle! Uncle!" Sasuke screamed out his surrender as he too was dropped rather quickly by Yoshino, the Uchiha scurrying over to Shikamaru's side as he helped his fellow Genin pick up trash.

Both boys kept working for a few minutes, as Yoshino stood over them, watching them, making sure that neither of them were slacking off. Sasuke could feel her eyes boring into the back of his skull, and the feeling of her presence only served to make him... well, a bit frightened.

"Your mom is scary...." Sasuke whispered over to Shikamaru who, under any other circumstances would've been shocked, could only nod in agreement with the Uchiha's statement.

"You're telling me...." The lazy Nara whispered back, as suddenly they both heard Yoshino slam her fan into the palm of her hand.

"What was that?!" She hollered at the two boys, who only picked up the pace of their cleaning.

"Nothing ma'am!"

"Nothing mom!"

Both boys shouted in near unison as they quickly collected the trash they had tossed during their short lived garbage war. In ten minutes the two Genin managed to collect all of the garbage they had tossed at each other from the street, forcing it into their own bags. The two gave Yoshino a somewhat frightened look as she inspected the street, nodding as she did.

"Alright... I'll leave you two to get back to your mission..." She began... before giving both boys a dark look. "However... if I hear that you two are causing trouble again, or aren't doing your work... I'll come back..." She said in a low tone, whispering her veiled threat as she began walking away, leaving both Shikamaru and Sasuke as pale as sheets, frozen in place as they watched her depart. As Yoshino reached the end of the street, she looked back at the boys, her eyes narrowing as she saw that the two boys were still just standing there.

"WELL?!" She screamed back at them, as the two Genin snapped themselves out of their stupor and immediately went about collecting the trash, Yoshino giving a small sigh as she continued walking, a small smile appearing on her face. "Such good boys..." She said with a somewhat dark laugh as took a turn down a different street, Shikamaru and Sasuke still absolutely stricken with fear as they continued to work.

A few minutes later, the two boys slowed down from their post-panic high, now just picking up garbage at a normal pace as the fear of Yoshino returning, while still present, had died down. It was during this time that Sasuke, having calmed down considerably, sighed as he picked up yet another empty bottle, tossing it into his bag as he took a small breath.

"Hey..." The Uchiha began, not turning away from picking up garbage as he tried to address Shikamaru, whom only grunted a bit in acknowledgment. Sasuke took a deep breath through his nose as he shook his head a bit, trying to swallow his pride for just that one moment. "Sorry." The 'genius' apologized rather quickly, not adding anymore words than that as he continued on with trash collection.

The Nara nearly tripped when he heard Sasuke mutter a 'sorry', not entirely believing that Sasuke had actually spoken that word. Never before had he known Sasuke Uchiha to have apologized for some sleight, no matter how great, he had done to someone... this fact along just made Shikamaru smirk, before walking over to Sasuke's side. The Uchiha looked over at the usually lazy Genin, who immediately began gathering up a particularly odorous pile of garbage that had been left on a nearby curb that Sasuke had been working on. Both Genin merely gave each other a small nod as the two began working in unison to get this mission done more quickly.

Not many words were said between Sasuke and Shikamaru for the rest of the mission, some idle comments about their teams, about their shared experience with the wrath of Shikamaru's mom, but not much more than small talk was shared.

After all men didn't need many words to form an understanding.

---------- Aburame Home: Hive Room ---------- A Short While Later ----------

In the darkness of the Aburame Hive Room, Shibi, Sakura and Ino were busy at work, the two girls assisting Shibi with the Aburame duty of assisting the 'Kikaichu sac-separation', a process that, despite the two kunoichi having worked at for the past several hours now, still weren't entirely sure of the purpose of this work.

"Alright Ino, on the count of three... one... two... three!" Sakura said slowly as, on the third count, she and her rival began pulling at different parts of one of the previously described egg-sac clusters, the viscous substance keeping the cluster together quite well, despite the amount of pull the two girls were putting on it. Eventually a small 'schwop' was heard, and Sakura stumbled back a bit as she managed to pull two egg sacs from the cluster, Ino stuck with the remaining eggs as Sakura put the separated sacs to the side.

Shibi, in the meantime, had gathered up yet another entire cluster and, using his Kikaichu bugs, had them begin eating away at the viscous liquid, in order to make the process of breaking up the cluster much easier than the method Sakura and Ino had formed. As the two girls began shaking the liquid from their hands, yet again, they looked over at the older Aburame... their curiosity over the nature of this process finally getting the better of their disgust of the look, feel, and... in one unfortunate mistake, taste of the egg clusters.

"Mr. Aburame... why exactly are we doing this?" Ino asked first, Sakura nodding as kept the egg sacs distanced from each other.

"Yeah... and... what the hell is that?" The pink-haired kunoichi added her own question, pointing over to the cratered rock which was spewing out what the two girls could now identify as eggs, thanks to their extensive experience with the things. Shibi looked over at the two girls, a dull look still on his face... though, in the dark, it'd still be rather hard to see.

"Hmmmm... normally most Genin who end up helping out don't ask questions." The Aburame said, which nearly caused Ino and Sakura to apologize for butting in, had he not immediately continued. "Alright, I'll answer Haruno-san's question first: the 'that' over there is the single most important thing in this entire room: the hive mind." Shibi began explaining, as he slowly began separating the cluster his Kikaichu bugs had been working on.

"At the very center of the hive mind is the Queen Kikaichu. The mind has two purposes: to protect the queen from various things that would do her harm, such as various predatory insects or other animals. The second purpose is to help the queen extend the range of which he pheromones can spread in the general area. With the help of the hive mind the Queen can control Kikaichu from several miles away: something that can prove very important if it finds itself in danger or, in case she's nearing the end of her life cycle, if she needs to find a replacement queen amongst the females." Shibi said in a rather textbook manner.

"Now, Yamanaka-san, you ask why we're doing this, that is, separating the Kikaichu egg-sacs. When my clan first discovered the Kikaichu, they were a breed of insect that were... thinly populated. You see, the sacs in an egg-cluster don't hatch all at once: often times an egg-sac will hatch days before any of the others in the cluster will. It was natural for the Kikaichu insects to then devour the unhatched sacs, provide them their first meal, and keep what would likely be weaker Kikaichu insects from being born..." Shibi continued, his indifferent tone when describing what was basically cannibalism amongst a species disturbing both of the kunoichi somewhat.

"Each sac contains about fifty insects... and each cluster is made up of about eight sacs, give or take one. As you can imagine, a 13% survival rate for births, especially with such a low number of survivors, wouldn't make for a very reliable... or long lasting ally for the clan to use." Shibi continued, grabbing up the last of the egg-clusters, and holding it in his hand for a few seconds. "So, in a way, the original clan members decided to change nature's design: by separating the egg-sacs from the entire cluster, we get a 100% survival rate amongst the Kikaichu, and anywhere between three-hundred fifty, and four-hundred fifty new insects per original cluster... much better, and much more useful." The Aburame clan head said slowly as his own insects began separating the cluster, the two girls just kind of staring at him with a bit of a dumb-founded expression.

"Wow...." Both kunoichi said slowly as Shibi nodded in affirmation.

"Indeed, it is rather incredible." The Aburame said as he took an elongated second to marvel at the egg-sacs, before looking at them. "Alright, they're all separated: let's start moving them to the vault." Shibi said as Sakura and Ino just raised their eyebrows at him, forcing the Shibi to actually point out the door that had been just to the right of the entrance to the hive room. With a quick 'oh', the two girls began picking up as many sacs as they could, making sure they wouldn't touch each other... wouldn't want to spend an extra five minutes trying to pull them apart again.

Shibi, meanwhile, simply took a few into one of his hands, using his free-hand in order to open the rather old wooden door to the new room...

Sakura and Ino had already had one freak out today, but this room very nearly warranted a second. The walls were lined with cages, both occupied and empty... the occupied ones had dozens of Kikaichu insects inside, buzzing around the sealed cages. The two girls merely swallowed a lump in their throat as they followed Shibi inside, proceeding to some of the empty cages. They noticed that these cages had large, j shaped tubes coming out of the cages, as wide around as an adult's arm, closed off on both sides, extending from inside of the cage, to outside of it.

Shibi opened up the outside latch of the tube and dropped an egg-sac into the tube, the group of eggs merely falling down the vertical drop, before rolling right on through the other hatch, rolling towards the center of the empty cage.

"We keep both sides sealed for safety... though, don't panic if you can't close the outside latch, the inside one can only be opened when something pushes it open from the outside." Shibi reassured the two girls, who noticeably calmed upon hearing the news.

"So... how do you get them back out when they... hatch?" Ino asked, towards the end of her question feeling like she should not have asked the question. Shibi, however, didn't seem to notice Ino's rather regretting tone towards the end and showed her... by sticking his arm down the tube of one of the occupied cages. He popped open the inner-latch of said tube, and rather quickly the Kikaichu insects inside the cage flew out and up his sleeve, their buzzing becoming noticeably louder as little bumps could be seen traveling up the sleeve of his coat.

Slowly, however, the buzzing died down, and the bumps on his sleeve slowly disappeared.

"That's how, now get the sacs into the empty cages." Shibi said in a bit of a stern tone... while Sakura and Ino merely nodded, turning a bit green in the gills as they thought about how having dozens of bugs crawl up your arm must've felt like...

"Okay...." They both said in unison as they began getting to work, dropping egg-sacs into the tubes of the empty cages. It was actually much easier and much less time-consuming than the process of separating the clusters, which made the job not just much easier and much more bearable for the two kunoichi.

It took just a half-hour for all the numerous sacs to be deposited into the cages, Shibi sighing a bit as he looked at the two girls.

"Alright, that's it, you're free to go." Shibi said, as Ino and Sakura's eyes shined with glee.

"Really, we can leave?!" Sakura asked as Ino nodded her head along with her former friend's.

"Of course, after all, its feeding time." Shibi said, as he walked past the girls, whom stood there... they wanted to leave, but at the same time they had a morbid curiosity as to what he meant by 'feeding time'. Moments later, Shibi returned... with a few cuddly mice in his hands.

"Awwwwwww!" Ino and Sakura 'awed' in unison as they watched Shibi carry the little mice towards one of the cages... and dump then into it. The two kunoichi's expressions became horrified as they watched the mice tumble through the tube, and into the cage, where all of the Kikaichu bugs immediately latched onto them, weak little squeaks being the last thing heard from the mice.

"Oh, by the way, don't forget to take off the glasses when you... get out of the room." Shibi said, the last part of his sentence somewhat slowed when he noticed that the two girls had immediately bolted off, the sound of the glasses falling onto the ground outside of the hive somewhat audible in the vault.

The two girls were sprinting faster than they had ever done so before, as if they were racing each other to see who could get out of the hellish bug rooms the fastest. As the two practically burst from the house, and stumbled down the stairs, their faces were colored like a lime. As they reached the bottom of the stairs and ran out onto the streets, the two kunoichi took deep breaths to try and calm themselves, pretty well traumatized by the events of that mission.

"Holy hell that was terrible!" Ino shouted as the green coloring of her face began to disappear, Sakura vigorously nodding in agreement.

"I know, I've never seen anything more disgusting in my entire life!" Sakura screamed as she held onto her stomach.

"I swear, when I get my hands on Asuma-sensei I'm gonna..." Ino growled at as she gripped her hands together, putting them in a chocking position..

"Leave some for me..." Sakura said as finally her stomach settled. "So... where do we go from here?" Sakura finally asked, Ino shrugging as she calmed down.

"I don't know, maybe we should wait at the tower for the others to finish up." The blond kunoichi said, Sakura nodding in agreement.

"Sounds good." Her pink-haired counterpart replied as they began walking down the street, casually heading towards the Hokage Tower. "Hey, Ino... correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't we arguing about something on the way here?" Sakura asked Ino, who's face contorted a bit as she tried to think of what they had been talking about.

"Yeah... yeah I think we were..." Ino said, tapping her chin a bit. "Can't remember what we were arguing about though." The Yamanaka quickly added, Sakura nodding as she shrugged.

"Oh well." The pink haired kunoichi ended the conversation right then as the two girls began heading to the Hokage Tower, the rather fitful, frightful time they had in the Aburame hive room seemingly having somewhat healed the divide between the two previous friends though, certainly, there was a long way to go, and whatever peace between them was likely to be temporary at best:

"No way Ino-pig, Sasuke-kun's mine!"

"Yeah right forehead-girl!"

---------- The Restaurant ---------- Later that Evening ----------

Naruto and Chouji were once again seen lounging at their table, finally able to say that their days of work was, nearly, finished. You see, the party had been dieing down for quite some time now: first none of the guests were ordering food, meaning Naruto and Chouji didn't have to serve it. Since they weren't ordering food, there was no dirty dishes to buss, and since there were no dirty dishes to buss, the only thing the two Genin had to do now was help clean up the restaurant... which the two opted to do when all the party guests would leave.

However, once again this left Naruto with nothing to do except for realize how bored out of his skull he was. The blond ninja was looking for something, anything to help take the edge off of his boredom. Talking to Chouji every few minutes helped, but the two, not having really known each other, didn't have much to talk about. The guests had long since ceased being at all interesting, and were now just chatting away about nothing... well, what was nothing to Naruto at least.

Naruto's eyes slowly glided over the restaurant, hoping something would catch his attention...

That's when he saw something he hadn't quite noticed before... something shiny. On the bar of the restaurant, sitting there in a nice little spot all by itself, was a small, gold statue of the Buddha. Naruto's eyes fell upon the small decoration as he examined it closely. It was actually interesting, to Naruto, that something like that, something made of gold, would just be sitting out in the open, where just anyone could grab it.

'Well, it wouldn't be easy to grab it, there'd be all these people around to possibly see you make a move for it... then there'd be getting the thing out of the restaurant without the manager noticing....' Naruto began thinking, his eyes darkening a bit as he stared at the statue. However, Naruto quickly gave himself a mental slap, trying to keep such thoughts out of his head. 'Come on Naruto, you became a ninja so you wouldn't have to steal, what are you thinking....' The former thief thought to himself as he clapped his hands together, getting Chouji's attention.

"Hey, Chouji, we're not doing anything right now, so how about we go ahead and start cleaning up so we can get the hell out of here." Naruto said as he stood up, the Akimichi only staring at him in a quizzical manner.

"But the guests are still here-" Chouji began, only to be pulled up to his feet by Naruto, who just shrugged.

"Hey, we'll handle the big stuff now, and then we'll only have to deal with the small work later." Naruto brushed off Chouji's comment, the Uzumaki really only using the 'cleaning' excuse in order to busy himself, keep himself from thinking about stealing. Chouji, seeing some logic in this, just shrugged.

"Alright, I'll take the chairs and tables, you head back towards the kitchen." Chouji said quickly, Naruto just nodding in agreement as he quickly made his way towards the kitchen.

It took about fifteen minutes for the boys to get the restaurant into ship shape: Chouji putting away tables and chairs that weren't being used, while also cleaning up the various messes made by the party goers. Naruto, in the meantime, emerged from the kitchen, having helped the cooks with the various dishes that needed washed down. Now, he had to do some dusting... and he'd start with the bar. Naruto quickly whipped down the entire bar with an old rag he'd been given, cleaning off almost everything...

Naruto had saved the golden idol for last. As the blond went about cleaning the Buddha statue... he began to notice that the statue's brilliance had actually been somewhat concealed by the dust that had been accumulating on it over the course of the day... it was much shinier than he had thought it had been mere moments ago. Naruto stared at the miniature Buddha for several seconds, his eyes practically glued to the golden statue as he looked around... no... he couldn't just grab it, people would notice...

"Ah-AHCHOO!" Naruto sneezed loudly as everyone in the restaurant looked over at him, the former thief having a bit of an idea mere seconds afterwards. "... Ummm... man this old thing doesn't work." Naruto muttered as he tossed the rag to the side, taking a thinking position as he looked at the 'still dusty' bar. "Hey, I have an idea of how to get this thing nice and clean..." Naruto said as he walked to one end of the bar, everyone in the restaurant still watching him like hawks, as slowly Naruto went through a set of seals that he was quite familiar with at this point.

"Wind Release: Gust." Naruto said as he clapped his hands together, a small torrent of wind emerging from his palms traveling across the bar. The party guests, and Chouji, were actually quite impressed with Naruto's trick, watching as the wind blew off most of the particles from the bar, while barely effecting the objects on the bar.

"You think that was good?" Naruto asked in a rather cheeky manner, going through the seals again. "Just watch, Wind Release: Gust!" Naruto said as he slammed his hands together, putting a lot more chakra into the technique this time. As the jutsu activated, a miniature tornado touched down onto the table, this time earning a small round of applause from the party guests as they watched the tornado move across the flat surface...

Before immediately tossing a plate that had been in its path across the room, shattering it against the wall. Soon following the plate came several pieces of silverware, glass, menus, rags, and other various objects that had been left on the bar, even the golden Buddha.

"Hit the deck!" Naruto shouted as everyone, himself included, ducked down onto the ground, as items of all types began flying over their heads, most of them smashing into the wall. Other objects flew right out of the restaurant... through several windows. When the jutsu reached the end of the table, leaving the tornado no stable ground to keep itself together, the technique immediately deteriorated, a powerful gust of wind blowing all over the restaurant, blowing even more projectiles into the air.

As the urgency in the room passed and no one felt like they would have a fork suddenly fly into their forehead, everyone looked up... and blanked at the minor bit of destruction Naruto had wrought. There was broken glass on the floor, utensils were lodged into the wall, the tables closest to the bar were actually flipped over from the force of the final wind... it was pretty bad. Though, if a ninja were in the restaurant, they'd probably be more amazed with how Naruto had made such a, normally, weak jutsu so... destructive.

Said blond stood up from the ground, sweat dropping as he, suddenly, the owner of the restaurant burst in from the back, having heard the ruckus... his eyes immediately turning towards Naruto, who just sheepishly scratched the back of his head.

"Hehehehe.... oops....."

----------- An Hour Later ----------

"Grrr... stupid restaurant... stupid manager... stupid jutsu... it was a mistake damn it!" Naruto grumbled to himself as he picked up the last pieces of glass from the floor, having long since been the last person in the restaurant, besides the owner. After the small disaster Naruto had created, the manager had gone off the wall with rage, looking about ready to bite Naruto's head off. Naruto, though, fearing for his pay, offered to help make up for the damages done to the place...

So, Naruto's punishment? Stay even longer than Chouji and clean up the mess he made all by himself. The Akimichi had been rushed out of the restaurant an hour ago, along with all of the party guests, as the manager wanted to make sure they took nothing in the chaos. Naruto had told Chouji to just head to the tower, tell Kakashi he had gotten in a bit of trouble, and that he'd just see them in the morning, like normal.

When everyone left, Naruto at first thought he could just use his Shadow Clones to make the entire process go by in a snap. However, this option was quickly shutdown, as the restaurant owner had threatened Naruto not to use anymore ninjutsu, lest the man pull the blond's pay, and while Naruto tried to protest how unfair it was, the owner reminded him that it was 'your damn ninjutsu that did the damage in the first place'....

So, here Naruto was, an hour later, with the old guy who owned the restaurant, without Shadow Clones, actually being forced to pick up every last bit of glass that was on the floor.

"You're a hateful old man!" Naruto shouted as he tossed the last of the glass in the garbage, the old restaurant owner just sighing as he waved him off.

"Ah, shut up, you're done now aren't ya?" The restaurant owner said as he pulled out the mission scroll that he and Chouji had brought before, placing his signature at the bottom of the scroll. "There, you worked, you're paid... though, I suggest you don't show your face around here for a while." The older man said as he threw the scroll at Naruto, who just caught it with one hand.

"I'll remember that." The blond said as he shoved the scroll into one of his jacket pockets, turning around to walk off for the night.

"Oh, by the way, I wanted to tell ya something..." The restaurant owner suddenly spoke, stopping Naruto in his tracks. "Its about my golden Buddha Statue... keep an eye out for it will ya? It must've flown out the window when you did your fancy ninjutsu." The owner said slowly as Naruto just nodded, waving back at the old man as he walked off.

"Will do..." Naruto muttered as he began walking away, the restaurant owner heading towards the back of his business to close up shop. Naruto casually made his way to the Hokage Tower to turn in the scroll, collecting his day's worth of mission pay also. With a small smile Naruto made his way back to his hide out, the bag of coins jingling in his hand as he did.

When he finally made it back to his hide out, Naruto dropped the bag of coins to the side and sat right in the middle of the empty lot, looking from side to side as he brought his kunai pouch to the ground in front of him. Slowly, Naruto opened up his kunai pouch, pulling from it... the golden Buddha statue. During the bit of chaos he had caused with the gust, Naruto plucked the little statue as it was soaring through the air.

"And everyone was keeping their heads down to the ground... no way anyone saw me do it..." The renewed thief said... as he took a deep breath. "Though, for a second there... I thought the old guy knew I had it... when he stopped me, I was nervous..." Naruto began, pulling up the sleeve of his jacket, seeing little bumps on his skin. "Gave me goosebumps... and one hell of a rush..." The blond said with a large smirk, looking back at the little statue.

"I think you just helped me find the perfect cure for my boredom..." The Street Fox said as he shoved the statue back into his kunai pouch.

"Heh, you know, who knew stealing could be so much fun..."

Song Omake (Watch JibJab's 'He's Barack Obama' to get the general tune)
(I just really wanted to write this while Danzo would still be relevant)

Hello- Singing

Konoha... or, the crater that was once Konoha, stood out in the open... destroyed and ruined. The dark clouds of the attack hanging over it like a thick smog...

When Darkness had Descended
all across... the land.
A lone voice in the distance
uttered yes, I can!

As the clouds began to part, the shadows of one particular man standing upon what used to be the Hokage mountain overshadowed the crater.

He hid in shadows,
clever man
He was real good as a
villaaaa-iinnnn

Suddenly, a bolt of lightning struck the top of the mountain, and the lone figure jumped down from the mountain and landed in the middle of the crater... dressed in a skin-tight red and white outfit, with a belt that had an ANBU mask for a buckle, and the Hokage Hat on.

HE'S THE HOKAGE DANZO
HE'S COME TO SAVE THE DAY!

He used his secret powers
to kill a clan.
Its true the Uchiha
were not, his fans!

As Danzo stood in a great pose, Kisame suddenly jumped from the top of the crater to try and attack Danzo, who merely delivered one solid punch to Kisame's gut, killing him instantly!

Stop Akatsuki's
Constant attacks!
Madara'd better
watch his back!

HE'S THE HOKAGE DANZO
HE'S COME TO SAVE THE DAY!

Suddenly, with his super-sensitive hearing, Danzo heard major brooding off in the distance and, spinning the Hokage hat like a helicopter propeller, he began flying into the air, heading towards the source of that sound.

He'll use his Kage powers
to kick, some ass!

Danzo immediately landed in the middle of team Hawk, the source of brooding being Sasuke whom Danzo immediately Kung-Fu chopped in the soul before flying off back towards Konoha.

Then Kung-Fu chop Uchiha boy
HI-YA! So crass!

Danzo immediately landed amongst Samui's team, and proceeded to whip them into shape.

Our strength in the world he'll mend
then make us and Cloud friends!

HE'S THE HOKAGE DANZO
HE'S COME TO SAVE THE DAY!

Suddenly, his Hokage Hat began ringing, and a small wire came down from the top of it... the voice on the other end of the line was the Raikage.

"Hokage-sama, we have a problem..."

Danzo merely hung up the line, and stared out towards Cloud.

"Hawk!"

Immediately twin jet-packs formed from Danzo's back, blasting him off towards the Cloud village. He immediately landed in the midst of a huge fight between Hawk and the Cloud-nin. Danzo punched, kicked, and brawled all the members of cloud into submission, before tossing Sasuke into a pit filled with Sand-Worms!

He'll save the day, make amends
To the grave evil he will send
Keep Sasuke from his own goals
Rake his ass across the coals!

Danzo continued with his amazing feats by jumping several miles away, landing onto Kakashi Hatake, before jumping away again, pulling a tiny little kitten from a tree top just above him.

He can leap a building
then land unto thee!
Save a kitten
from a tree!

Danzo immediately began sprinting to the Kage summit, arriving there before any of the other Kage.

Go to Iron,
make his case!

Just as he made it Naruto tried to interrupt the meeting with his 'circle of hate' nonsense... and received a huge punch in the face.

Punch Naruto
IN THE FACE!

Stop a demon,
wrestle 'Bee
Then kill them
for you and me!

CUZ YOU'RE THE HOKAGE DANZO
YOU'VE COME TO SAVE THE DAY
SO JUST SNAP YOUR FINGERS
AND MAKE THIS MANGA LESS GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

Omake 1

(What's this? A non-Naruto Omake... AND A LAST AIRBENDER OMAKE?!
Who would've guessed?)

At the bottom of Lake Logai, Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, and Jet were wandering the vast halls of the prison, checking each cell for any sign of Appa.

"Let's check this one, I got a good feeling about it!" Aang said as he rushed over to said cell door, Katara eying the door suspiciously.

"I don't know Aang... it doesn't look like it'd be big enough to get Appa in..." She said as Aang just waved her off.

"Still, I'm going to try..." Aang said stubbornly as he pulled the door open, and looked inside... only to be horrified at what he found.

"Oh no! This isn't where Long Feng hid Appa! This is where Long Feng locked up the Animaniacs!" Aang exclaimed as, suddenly, three black and white blurs vaulted from the cell, bouncing around the empty hallway like crazy as the three being tasted freedom for the first time in years.

Suddenly, they stopped right in front of the Gaang. They all had dog-like appearances, and were black and white. They also varied size, and dress. The tallest one, a boy, wore tan-slacks with a black and yellow belt, the middle one, also a boy, wore a blue turtle-neck and a red baseball cap, and the shortest, a girl, wore a pink skirt and a flower in her hair.

"Hellooooo! We're the Warner Brothers!" The two boys said in unison, the girl quickly chiming in right afterwards.

"And the Warner Sister!" She said in a manner which made Katara 'ah' at her appearance.

"I'm Yakko!" The tallest said, shaking Aang's hand before whispering back to his brother and sister. "Boy, baldness sure is hitting earlier and earlier, ain't it?" He commented, causing Aang to just blush a bit as he tried to explain, before being interrupted by the blue-turtlenecked 'dog'.

"I'm Wakko!" Wakko said, before quickly belching in Sokka's and Jet's face, promptly knocking out both boys.

"And I'm Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fanna Bobesca the Third, but you can call me Dot." She said, before quickly getting up in Katara's and Toph's face. "But call me Dottie and you die." She said before rejoining her brothers, Katara a little shocked by the Dot's statement, while Toph just smirked, liking Dot's guts.

"Stop right there Warner Brothers... and Sister!" Long Feng shouted from down the hall, a series of Dai Lee Agents supporting him. "Guards, restrain the Animaniacs!" Long Feng shouted as Yakko just laughed a bit.

"You going to get the whips out too?" Yakko commented idly as Long Feng just stammered for a moment, before growling.

"Don't just stand there, I said move!" Long Feng roared as his Dai Lee began running towards the Animaniacs... Wakko just getting in front of his siblings. In the next second, Wakko released a belch so powerful that the cave walls shook, the mere scent of the gas being enough to knock every single Dai Lee agent unconscious.

"Well.... should've seen that coming..." Long Feng muttered as, suddenly, the Animaniacs barged right past the leader of the Dai Lee, heading towards the exit, and towards Ba Sing Se.

Ba Sing Se

The Warner Brothers (and Warner Sister) ran rampant through the streets of Ba Sing Se, causing mass chaos as the citizens of the city didn't know what to do now that the Animaniacs had returned. The Animaniacs had made it to the lower districts, causing mass chaos along the streets when the group of three ran into Jin... and immediately Yakko's and Wakko's tongues rolled out of their heads, which changed to a more wolf-like shape.

"Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Nurse!" The two boys exclaimed as Jin merely looked at them with a mix of fear and confusion, Dot merely standing to the side, shaking her head.

"Boys: go fig." She said... before spotting someone moving through the crowds, heading back towards Lake Logai. Dot, without warning, jumped the young man, revealed to be Zuko. "Hey there..." Dot said in a somewhat seductive manner, giving Zuko a big wet kiss on the cheek as the Fire Nation Prince, shocked from the experience, ran off, Dot just sighing a bit.

"I would marry that man..." She said slowly as, suddenly, she was scooped up into a net, along with her brothers, by a particularly chubby man wearing an ill-fitting Dai Lee uniform.

"Drrr I got 'em, I got 'em Long Feng sir!" Ralph said as he saluted the oncoming leader of the Dai Lee, who just shook his head.

".. Just take them to Dr. Scratchansniff..." Long Feng ordered wearily as Ralph saluted him once again, running off to said Doctor's office...

Doctor Scratchansniff's Office

We find the doctor's office in complete disarray, the books scattered, tables flipped, and the dear doctor himself laying flat on the ground in a fetal position, muttering 'don't know what to say, the monkeys won't do', while a giant hole in the wall in the shape of the Warner Brothers (and Warner Sister) showed clearly that the Animaniacs had escaped... who knows what trouble they would cause in Ba Sing Se...

Author's Notes (Original Jutsu)

Wind Release: Gust

D-Rank, Offensive, Short Range (0-5m)

Users: Almost all Wind Jutsu Users, Naruto Uzumaki, Kakashi Hatake

Hand Seals: Ram, Monkey, Rat, Dragon

Description- By slamming his hands together, the user can force a small whirlwind from the wind between their hands and towards the direction of the users choice.

R&R