INTRO

-Part 2-

-At Konoha Academy –

Dark coal eyes closed off in a simple unknown show of annoyance as two female developing bodies pressed against a young 16 year old boy's sides. Those dark eyes stared hard ahead, the saying 'out of sight, out of mine' repeating within the teen's head. However they were still forced to acknowledge the two girls since neither let up on him, one even started talking about their weekend plans as if he was interested.

"..So yeah, it'll be really fun. You should come join us at the park this Saturday." The female pressing against the male's left side said with a faint tug to their arm.

The male's eyes hardened even more.

"Like yes-yes! Say you'll come, it'll be so much fun and no one will bother you there." The other female pressing the boy's right clipped in that was followed by a happy cheer from both of them.

The sound killing whatever thinning patients the teenage boy had.

However before he could spit out a demeaning retort to the two girls, a new voice entered in; a voice that calmed the growing annoyance and slipped the dark eyed boy back into their fully impassive state they were known for.

"Haruno, Yamanaka; the two of you alone are bothersome enough."

The three turned their head to the left to where the new comer's voice was coming from. Their eyes rested on a male with pale-tan skin, long dark chocolate hair that was gather up into a high pony-tail with two strands that seemed to have slipped out from the hairband and framed the male's slightly famine face. Despite the attractive face, the guy's eyes were what caught attention first, making them rather infamous in Kohona Academy. The male's eyes had an odd white hue that over layered the soft faint blue tone underneath and this was due to the fact the male was partly blind from a car accident 7 years prior.

"Neji." The dark eyed teen greeted while smoothly dislodging himself from the girls hold while they were distracted.

The addressed teen gave a single nod of greeting back along with a verbal mimic, "Sasuke."

The female that had been standing on Sasuke's left pouted when she realized her future husband was no longer in her grasp; her green eyes narrowing at Neji.

"Manners, Haruno. It's rather rude to stare, more so at your betters."

"My betters?" the green eyed female repeated with a furrow of her brows, her pink hair swaying a bit as she tilted her head up a bit to meet the Hyuga's grey-blue and slightly whited out eyes. Even though Neji Hyuga was a stuck up bastard and acted like a noble, the Hyuga was still one of the hottest guys within their school. Of course Sasuke would always be her number one but Sakura knew a hottie when she saw one just like any other girl.

Sakura's question though went ignored as Neji returned his attention to Sasuke. "I was sent to retrieve you for council, Uchiha."

Sasuke simply nodded and the two left the girls standing there to stare at their backs.

"He never gave us an answer." Ino commented with a pout.

Sakura turned to her best friend and gave the pale blonde's shoulder a pat. "We can ask him again after their council meeting. The mean time we should do our homework so we won't slip behind Sasuke!"

"CHEE-YEAH!" Ino cheered with a fist pump.

Sasuke withheld a groan as the clock upon the classroom wall the council had gathered in seemed to take it's time reaching 5:30. It was a newly formed rule that whenever meetings took longer than expected they all had to stop it short when it reached 5: 30; mainly because the school would be closing in the following 30 minutes.

"Since our time is nearly up we'll finish addressing the graduation dance on Monday." A female with brownish red hair stated with a glance of her own to the clock.

"Well, I'm outta here. See you all Monday then." Another member said as they, along with the four others sitting around a circle table, moved to stand up and depart the room.

Sasuke and Neji left without a word of farewell but neither were known to be overly vocal when not needed to be. They parted to their located lockers, removing what wasn't needed and storing what was within their bags before rejoining at the entrance doors.

Neji was the first to arrive there, his stance formal despite leaning against the door frame It due to this timing the Hyuga was able to pick the hushed voices of a few females in a nearing classroom. If anyone were to ask him what his thought may have been at that time, he would have lied and said he wan't even remotely bothered by the crowd of girls. There was only one reason for there to be lingering girls around the school on a Friday at almost 6 pm.

Fan girls.

"I didn't know you were one to zone-out, Hyuga."

Neji turned his head, his eyes shifting along with the movement to rest upon Sasuke's nearing form. Having known the youngest Uchiha since they were 7 Neji was able to easily pick out the other's body frame; even after the couple of growth-spurts. Sasuke's choice in hair style and selected cologne helped a lot too.

Neji simply turned his back to the other teen and started on his walk home with a trailing comment toward the other dark haired boy. "You should keep pace."

Sasuke blinked at hearing that. It was a code the two had formed over the first month of entering the same high school. The girls in high school were far more aggressive and willing to do nearly anything to gain their attention; something both of them thought to be rather ridiculous. And people say females mature faster than males.

Not speaking another word to one another the two made their way down the smoothed pavement pathway that cut through the well cared for front grounds of their school, a few other paths breaking off or joining the one that lead to the school's entrance. As the silence settled in around them, their guard lowered a bit enough to where the two could relax some and simply enjoy the stroll home for once.

However it wasn't to last for long as the sound of a trashcan being knocked into sounded from behind them just as they passed by a pizza joint; a pit-stop for many students during lunch break.

"Uchi-"

"Don't even, Hyuga. "

The dubbed Hyuga simply went on; paying no attention to the fact that he had been interrupted. "-maybe it would do us good if you were to hide. I cannot see them disbanding anytime soon if they can still get a visual of you."

"I'm not going to hide from a few hormonal girls, Neji."

There was a long silence; excluding the muffled distant giggles behind them that seemed to have grown in volume somehow since they were now hear-able.

Hearing no sly jibe from the other, the Uchiha turned his head to look at his fellow walking-buddy only to be met with the back of Neji's head. The Hyuga's attention seemed to be on behind them. Sasuke followed their facing direction and seemly paled at the sight; his own voice box mimicking the brunette's. Utter silence.

A full minute passed before either boy spoke again; Neji's voice overlapping Sasuke's hearing of the girls' noises. "A few you say? I believe there to be a hoard of them tailing us." Neji's voice was spoken in a lower tone not wanting to draw more attention to them by having their followers think they gained their attention, despite the fact they indeed had. Despite being semi blind Neji could still make out a few of his own female-followers within the nearing crowd. After all, it was best to know one's enemy and be able to out maneuver, or in this case, out run them.

Sasuke ignored the Hyuga's delayed taunt since they were too busy looking for either a quicker route to one of their houses; whichever was closer, or some place they both could lay low till the girls moved on and left to look for them elsewhere.

The street Sasuke and Neji were walking on was pretty much bare if one ignored the gathered females behind them. The houses seemed limited here even though they seemed more new and more in similarity to the other rows of houses from further up the block the pair had just walked. Sasuke shifted his gaze to the coming up intersection; one road added on to the right and their current road would lead into the more lively places of their city. The houses down the attached road looked like they should be condemned and there were far less of them, big gaps of empty lots filled in the spaces between the seemly abandoned houses. Upon a closer look, Sasuke noticed some of them were in fact boarded up.

Perfect.

Not wasting anytime the Uchiha grabbed Neji's arm and took off down the street a few feet before turning right onto the attached road and keeping a quick pace while his onyx colored eyes looked for a window or door that was unblocked by boards of wood. Sasuke could feel Neji's glare burning into the back of his head but easily ignored it when he spotted a rather big house at the very end of the road; it looked more like a mansion then a house but that detail was easily overlooked as Sasuke rushed them both toward it.

Neji was just gaining his footing when he felt his body collide into something hard that sounded with a heavy creek of a warning before giving out against his weight, forcing his body to tumble forward onto the hard and suddenly dust coated ground. A boom quickly sounded the moment he hit the ground and everything seemed to go dark.

A few moments of silence passed before it was broken when the Hyuga felt his wrist pulse in a dull throb of pain. "Get off my hand, Uchiha."

There was a muffled grunt then the sound of someone shifting to stand up followed by a sneeze. Neji stood up as well, rubbing his wrist and flexing his fingers to work out the mild pain in them. Dropping his arm down, the Hyuga glanced around the area they were in not that there was much to see; more so for Neji and his already semi lack of seeing ability. However, from the Hyuga was able to gather from a quick replay of events, he concluded that the two of them were inside a building. That or; "Are we in someone's house?"

"An abandoned manor I believe; it was the only place that lacked the sealed-up boards upon the door." Was Sasuke's response as he looked about the place they crash entered into. His shoulder giving a throb from the memory.

The lighting from the early night outside seeped into the creaks between the wooden boards upon the windows, casting the room the two boys were in into a dim glow that showed a bit of dust floating around that they had stirred up from the forced entry. The lighting showed the decaying insides of the manor's entrance hall. Even though it was rather spacious, it was in no good condition.

A once used to be grand staircase split off into two separate staircases at each of the ends of the vaguely visible second landing. The grand stairs were missing chunks of banister and more than a few steps were either caved in or completely missing. The formerly polished wooden floor boards gave a sound at almost every slight movement; there were gaping holes in some of the boards where termites and time had their feast upon the aged wood.

The ceiling despite being so rather high held a faintly view-able cloud of dust, the walls darkening in color the higher one looked up them. The wallpaper that pasted the walls were torn, missing in some areas and even looked burned or wrinkled up in a way that it seemed as if the very walls were dying.

In full, it looked like one of those mansions from the 1800's.

-Back with Naruto-

"You're late, Uzumaki."

"You're one to talk, I just saw you stroll in!" The blonde huffed out while taking a seat at the same booth his tutor had just slid into.

The retort was ignored though by a simple yawn from the other.

"Freak 'in…lazy…bastard..." Naruto mumbled lightly while setting his bag upon the table, pulling out a pen and a notebook followed by his schoolbooks.

"Anyways, go get yourself a soda. I'd rather not have to repeat myself because you dozed off mid-way through."

The blonde stared at his tutor for a long moment. Long enough to get the older teen sit up a bit from their slouched position to return the stare with a mildly questioning gaze.

"What?"

"Shikamaru…" Naruto said in a slightly questioning tone.

"Yes?"

"You're a hypocrite."

The two worked on Naruto's history homework at a steady pace. Ordering two silences of pizza and a soda each to keep them both from the temptation to forget the work and doze/lack off. They skimmed over math since oddly enough Naruto was rather good at it when not distracted, something they figured he got from his mother who always scored high in mathematics when she was in school.

It was nearing 6 at night when the pair finished off the blonde's homework completely and did a bit of Q&A where Shikamaru asked questions regarding Naruto's information on his up-coming test. Unfortunately it seemed they didn't spend enough time going over the books since Naruto was only able to answer 4 out of 20 questions without looking up an answer or saying; "Screw it, next question lazy-boy."

"You are aware that your test is on Monday, right?" Shikamaru asked as he piled up their trash on a single tray before moving to stand up; having left his own (completed) school work at Kohona High within his locker.

"You don't have to remind me, you know." Naruto commented back with a faint whine while packing up his stuff.

"Troublesome." was the older's single word response as they both made their way out of the pizza joint and back onto cemented ground for the semi lengthy trip home.

"Stop saying that. I feel like my vocabulary is going to go down to just that word and that 'what a drag' saying of yours in a few more weeks." Naruto said as he clamped his hands over his ears, picking up pace a bit to get away from the lazy teen's infamous lines.

"If you studied Naruto you wouldn't need me to tutor you after school."

"Hey now, I would have asked Gaara but he doesn't let me copy."

"I said 'tutor' not 'cheat', Uzumaki."

The addressed teen just turned around to walk backward, with a formed grin that he directed at the other boy. Shikamaru released a long sigh in response to that. Rolling his dark brown eyes heavenward at the troublesome-ness that was one Naruto Uzumaki. If it hadn't been for Naruto's aunt winning the bet between Asuma and herself, he wouldn't be here right now. As it was, fate seemed to have picked this one bet for the pale, busty, blonde woman to actually win. And her winning skate was; "If I win, you get the pleasure of keeping the brat's grades up and if you don't I'll be sure to let slip a few things your father told me about you when you were a kiddo and you'll owe me money...lots of money. We clear, Sarutobi Hiruzen's little cub-cubby-cub of a son?" Of course, Asuma ended up dumping his loss upon his favorite student who none other than Shikamaru; who just so happened to be indebted to Asuma for not failing him from his lack of awake-full-ness during classes. Shaking his head from his thoughts; Shikamaru focused back onto the present. He noted that he and the year younger blonde would be reaching the separating point of their walk home. Naruto would go right and himself, left.

Just as they were reaching their parting paths, Naruto heard the distant sound of people; the faint noise from the unseen crowd gaining his attention which in turn had him poking Shikamaru's side to get his attention.

"What?"

"You hear that?"

Shikamaru yawed, but he listened for whatever the blonde could be hinting at. It wasn't until he was about say that he didn't hear anything did his hearing pick up on the noise. "Sounds like a gathering."

"Yeah, let's check it out." Naruto headed down the street that was the longer route to his house.

"Why?"

The blonde stopped just two feet away at hearing the comment. He turned around and walked back toward his tutor, walking around him till he was facing Shikamaru's back where Naruto then proceeded to push the lazy teen toward the sounds. "I'll let you sleep for a whole tutor session if you come check it out with me. I'll even tell my aunt that you helped me pass the history test."

Shikamaru rolled the offer around a bit; one, he could get an early start on his after school napping, get a good word-in from Naruto to his headmistress and not have to do any extra work, but was it really worth it to check out something that could be a real drag. Then again, it could just be some lagging students taking their time walking home.

With a faint nudge at his back from the blonde for answer, Shikamaru agreed.